Interviewing without an interviewer: Technology gone too far?
Sounds crazy, but it’s happening: “automated” phone screen interviews. Will it catch on, or is it just a fad?
What is an automated interview? Basically, you buy the service from a vendor and pre-record a set of questions. Then you get a toll free number to put in job ads or give to candidates you’d like to learn more about.
The candidates call the number at their convenience, listen to the questions and record their answers.
(Check out a vendor offering the service here.)
Is it a worthy idea? It might help out if you don’t have the manpower to do phone screens with an actual human being on the other end. But even then, there’s no way to probe, so you aren’t really likely to find out much more than you can get from the resume and cover letter.
But who knows. Stranger things have become normal practice. What do you think about it? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section.
Comments
3 Comments on Interviewing without an interviewer: Technology gone too far?
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colleen on
Tue, 6th May 2008 2:47 pm
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K on
Tue, 2nd Sep 2008 7:12 pm
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annmarie cross on
Tue, 9th Sep 2008 2:51 pm
I’ve had some really good looking resumes turn up very bad candidates. These days, anyone can get free help (from career centers, government one-stops, etc) or even pay to get a good looking resume. No matter how good the resume looks, I always call for an initial phone screen follow-up.
I think this product will help you validate a good resume. It doesn’t seem likely to replace the face-to-face, but maybe just cut down on bad initial (resume) selection.
Personally, I would not continue the application process at a company that had an automated system to do the phone screening. It shows that the company does not care enough about their potential employees to speak with them directly.
Really, this isn’t much different than using knock out questions in your career center/online application process, but it FEELS a lot less professional.
By the time I listened to recorded ramblings, it would most likely be quicker for me to do the phone screen myself. I prefer to have a career center, do knock out questions, and then briefly review those the system knocks out. It amazes me how often a candidate selects the wrong thing (lives in our zip code, yet marks “no” to “do you live in xx or within driving distance”), and we do NOT just ignore them based upon that mistake alone.
