Spotlight for Recruiting Professionals

Employer use of video interviewing jumped nearly 25 percent since last year, adding an exclamation point to a decade-long upward trend and leaving little doubt as to the primary catalyst for the decline in on-campus interviewing.

In past NACE Recruiting Benchmarks Survey reports, the decrease in on-campus interviewing was speculated to have been caused by either a decrease in the URR budget for recruiting trips or an increase in the use of video interviewing.

But while money allotted to recruiting trips has remained unchanged for most respondents and, for others, has increased more often than it has decreased, the use of video interviewing has grown significantly. (See Figure 1.)

In 2006, just 7 percent of employer respondents used video interviewing as a college recruiting tool. The relatively steady climb in its use over that period reached 32 percent last year before spiking this year as 55 percent of employers reported using video interviewing.

Though on-campus interviewing remains a popular and effective method for employers in recruiting new graduates (nearly 60 percent of new college hires came from on-campus interviewing), its use has been on a steady decline. Over the past decade, employer use of on-campus interviewing has dropped from 89 percent in 2006 to 74 percent this year, and the percentage of employers that indicated using it in the 2016 report dropped 2.6 percent from last year.

At this point, the number of employers using only video interviewing remains low. However, the offer rates were similar for employers that reported using only on-campus interviewing or only video interviewing (48 percent and 47 percent, respectively), while acceptance rates for employers using only video interviewing were higher—73 percent for employers using only on-campus interviewing to 87 percent for employers using only video interviewing.

It will be interesting to see where the numbers go from here. Was the spike in the percentage of employers using video interviewing this year an anomaly and will that percentage backslide? Or will it continue to ascend? If it does, will it persist in cutting into the use on-campus interviewing? NACE will continue to monitor this trend.

In the meantime, it’s clear that employers are finding benefits in the use of video interviewing.

NACE’s 2016 Recruiting Benchmarks Survey was conducted from May 24, 2016, to August 31, 2016, among NACE employer members; 233, or 24.6 percent, responded. The survey report will be available in early 2017.