Most candidates favor face-to-face job interviews

Dive Brief:

Most respondents (62%) in a new survey by talent and outsourcing firm Yoh said they prefer in-person job interviews to virtual interviews. The Harris Poll of 2,000 U.S. adults was conducted on Yoh's behalf.
In key survey findings, 59% of respondents said that in-person interviews are the only way to gauge a new job opportunity; (37%) said virtual interviews limit connecting with the interviewer; and 17% said virtual job interviews offer too many chances for technical difficulties. Just 38% of respondents prefer virtual interviews, with nearly a quarter saying they would be more comfortable virtually than in-person.
"In this technological era, companies are consistently finding faster, better ways to streamline the recruitment process and open the door to a wider range of hiring opportunities," Yoh President Emmett McGrath said in a news release. "But Americans' skepticism of virtual interviews highlights the need for human interaction throughout the recruitment and hiring process. While virtual interviews can offer a wider reach and can often be quicker to schedule, they should not be replacements for face-to-face interaction and the personal connection provided by highly skilled recruiters."

Dive Insight:

Electronic communication in the recruiting process was also a problem for participants in a Yoh survey released in May; 69% of respondents said that artificial intelligence (AI) should have nothing to do with some hiring tasks. Apparently, a majority of job seekers trust in more traditional hiring procedures like in-person interviews and communication with live people at the various stages of recruitment.

Despite the overall rejection of video and AI in hiring from the Yoh survey results, technology has made the recruiting process faster and more efficient for employers and more personalized for candidates. Jenny Klebba, manager of talent acquisition at Montage, an interviewing technology company, previously told HR Dive that, first and foremost, recruiters should think about personalizing the candidate experience. She added that employers must consider how technology can be used in hiring, citing such procedures as scheduling interviews.

"I would say that in terms of tech, [candidates] want a similar experience to their consumer lives, and we do that through video, voice and text interviewing," Klebba said.