What is Video Interviewing?

Video interviewing allows you to invite candidates to participate in a recorded video interview and they can complete this at a time to suit them.  Candidates can all answer the same pre-recorded questions ensuring recruiters can easily and fairly compare interviews.

Video Interviewing can save time and money as well as help to remove barriers when recruiting across time zones. It can also reduce the admin of planning interviews into busy diaries. 

This guide includes:

• Video guide
• SHINE SETUP
  • Setting up One-way video interviews
  • Roles 
  • Creating a new role
  • Global Options
• Setting up the one-way video interview
• Interview questions
  • PRACTICE QUESTION
  • INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
• Invite emails – stock text and examples
• Shine FAQS
  • Candidate queries
  • RESETTING A CODE
  • A CANDIDATE NEEDS TO RE-RECORD AN INTERVIEW QUESTION
  • CANDIDATES WAITING FOR ANSWERS TO UPLOAD
  • INVALID INVITE CODE
• JOBTRAIN STEPS AND SETUP
  • Creating video interview statuses
  • CREATE A STANDARD VIDEO INTERVIEW AND VIDEO INTERVIEW COMPLETE STATUS
  • CREATING A VIDEO INTERVIEW STATUS LINKED TO A SHINE VIDEO INTERVIEW 
  • Assigning the generic statuses to System Customisation
  • Enabling access to review and invite candidates to Video Interviews 
• Inviting to video interview
  • Inviting using the Video Interview button
  • Inviting to video interview using a status change
• Reviewing interviews
  • FAQS

Video guide

Prefer to watch a video guide on using and setting up one way video interviewing? Watch the guide below:

SHINE SETUP

Setting up One-way video interviews

Roles 

What does the term ‘Role’ mean? 

Role means one set of video interview questions; you can use the same role for multiple jobs and candidates you do not need to create a new role for each job you have in Jobtrain. 

Creating a new role

When you are logged into your Shine Video Interview account, navigate to Roles. Find the “plus” icon button to Add a new role, then select Click here to start creating global options.

Global Options

Global options are the top-level settings and descriptions for each Role in Shine - you’ll be prompted to create these options first. There are 4 stages of setting up the global options. Simply navigate these stages by filling in the details and pressing Next.

The information below will help you to complete these global options.

The ‘role’ within Shine doesn’t necessarily need to match each job in Jobtrain, it could simply be if you need to create an interview set of questions for all Marketing jobs, or all Customer Service jobs for example.

The following fields are not used in this section, due to the integration in place between Jobtrain and Shine, so can be ignored:

• Template Role?
• Show notes on publicly shared reviews?
• Salary
• Benefits
• Skills
• Enable Public Link (video interview only)?

Add a Job Ref: this can be any reference you choose; it does not need to match a job reference in Jobtrain.

Tick here if this role is only to be used for live interviews, meeting room setup or only events: This section can be ignored for one-way interviews. 

Add a Job Title: this can be for a specific role or if the questions are generic, such as Marketing questions, you can name it accordingly just for Marketing roles.

Opening date: this is defaulted to today’s date - amend as required.

Closing date: after this date candidates will no longer have access to the video interview process online. If you plan to use interview for the foreseeable future, we recommend adding a closing date in the distant future. 

Completion Deadline: Add here the number of days following the date the invitation email was sent for candidates to complete their video interview. Or leave it as ‘no limit’ meaning candidates will have until the ‘closing date’ to complete the interview.

Options available are: 1 day, 2 days, 3 days. 5 days, 7 days, 10 days, 14 days or ‘no limit’.

Open Role (don't send final reminder emails): Check this box if the role is, what we refer to, an ‘evergreen’ role. Essentially this role is one that’s always recruited for, with the deadline date in the distant future.

Don’t send final reminder emails should be ticked for these types of roles so that we don’t send reminder emails which are linked to the deadline date (expiry date) in the system rather than the individual deadline dates.

Disable Completion Days Invite Email Sentence? Check this box to not include detail on the number of days candidates have to complete the video interview in their invite email.

Company overview video or Company overview text sections: Use this section to add relevant information that will be of value to your candidates. This section can include generic information about your company, or information such as an overview of the recruitment process, the reasons why they have been invited to a video interview, etc. 

Please note the maximum character limit is 500 included spaces and video information must be .MOV filetype. 

Press Next to continue.  

Salary field: this section can be ignored. 

Job overview video or Job overview text sections: As per the above, include here whatever information you wish for candidates to see before they reach the questions section of the interview.  Also, an optional field and often left blank as job overviews can vary.

Please note the maximum character limit is 500 included spaces and video information must be .MOV filetype. 

Press Next to continue.  

Benefits and Skills – these sections can be ignored. Press Next to continue.

Enable Public Link (video interview only)?: This can be ignored. 

Press Finish to complete the role setup.

Setting up the one-way video interview

From within the role, select to edit the interview stage:

When you select Edit video Interview stage, you will then have 4 sections to work through. This starts with the introduction text that candidates see when they enter their invite code. 

In this section, we recommend a brief introduction, followed by instructions such as checking their devices for lighting, sound, battery life etc. You can also include a practice question, so ensure candidates know they will have the opportunity to test their tech first.

Candidate interviews – stock text

We’ve included below some suggested content for each section in the interviews. Each text box can be edited as long as it is within the character limit. 

This content is displayed to candidates following the Company and Job overview sections above and provides information in advance of their video interview starting.

Content to display MUST be edited.

Click Next to continue.

Interview questions

A practice question, plus up to 10 interview questions, can be entered for the video interview. Typically, we see 6 or 7 questions on average. Each question has a time limit of up to 2 minutes and 30 seconds. 

Please note, to use video questions a text question must also be provided. There is a character limit of 550 including spaces for each question.

Creating a practice question and interview questions

Add up to 10 interview questions in this section.

PRACTICE QUESTION

The first question must be the practice question. Ask them something informal, such as where they last went on holiday? Shine will not allow the set of interview questions to be saved without there being a practice question added. 

Time limit: For the practice question, we recommend a maximum time limit of 1 minute.

Complete the fields (information on each below) and check the box against Is practice question? for the practice question.

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Add a question: Add your interview question here.

Video question: If you’d prefer to add a video of an interview question being asked, this can be added here. Excepted video file format is .mov files. Each video question also requires a text question too.

Time limit: add a time limit here from the dropdown (this must be added for each question). For the interview questions, we’d recommend this is the same amount of time for each for consistency.

Is a scenario video question? This feature allows you to present the candidate with a scenario based question via video and ask the candidate to present their answers back. We’ve provided a written example of two scenario-based video questions below:

Add Question From Pool: select here to add a question from your Question Pool. If you have frequently asked questions, these can be added to your Question Pool – add them directly from within the Question Pool, they can be added whilst creating a set of interview questions:

Adding questions to the Question Pool from a set of interview questions: After completing the details for your question, simply check the box against Add to question pool? and add any relevant search tags.

Then click Add question.

Set reading time?: Check this box if you wish to set a maximum time candidates would have to read and digest the interview question before recording their answer. Maximum reading time is 10 minutes (default is 30 seconds). These settings are the same for all questions added in this set. 

Allow retries: selecting this option will allow candidates to retry each question in this set. To use this option, choose the number of retries candidates will have. These settings are the same for all questions added in this set. Note – retries cannot be enabled if reading time is limited. 

Questions can be edited after they have been added, so don’t worry if you wish to make changes to them. 

To amend or delete a question, simply press the pencil icon or the cross icon against the question.

When all questions have been added, press Next at the bottom of the page.

The next screen will display the following:

Fixed next step: This section is fixed and cannot be edited.

Add next step: Here you can add additional information for candidates to see after completing their interview, such as thanking them for completing the interview and what the next steps are in the process. Please note there is a 100-character limit (including spaces) per entry.

Please note these ‘Next step’ messages will also appear in the email to the candidate at the end of the process which confirms all of their videos have uploaded and their application is complete

Edit Invite Response Text?

This is the first email that a candidate will see when you invite them to video interview from Jobtrain. 

Add a subject title and email content. We recommend including information about the interview for candidates, such as the number of questions to answer, details of any time limits and number of retries and the web link to Shine’s technical support helpdesk. Once complete, press Save. 

Note:  the process is triggered from Jobtrain, however, the invite email is received from Shine. 

Please note the following merge fields pull data from Shine global options not from Jobtrain:
- Job/Role Title
- Job Title
- Account/Organisation Name

Invite emails – stock text and examples

Example email content below:

Clicking on Edit Invite Response Text will open a new window, as below:

Here you can create and tailor the invite email to candidates. The parts in bold are fixed but all other areas are editable. We recommend making the invitation as candidate friendly and informative as possible, as it is at this point that a candidate will be committing to do the video interview.

Save 

Press Finish to save the video interview. 

You will then be returned to the page below – just press Finish to complete the setup. 

Once you have created a new video interview, you will then see this video interview as an option to select from when inviting to candidates to a video interview from Jobtrain. No additional setup work is required.

“I’d like to invite a candidate that has expressed they need more time to read or answer the questions. Can I do this?”

Yes, to adjust a role’s interview questions and settings simply clone the role you would like to adjust:

Rename the cloned Role, for example 'Customer Service Roles - no reading time limits', so that’s it’s clear what it is.

Amend the questions/timings as required and save. 

Then invite the candidate to this adjusted Role from within Jobtrain, following these steps.

Shine FAQS

We have detailed below the FAQs to the Shine Support Desk and how they would respond to each.

Candidate queries

RESETTING A CODE

Candidates may miss a deadline and require an extension, or they need their code resetting for other reasons. If you wish to reset the candidate(s) code the steps to follow are below:

• Select Roles
• Then ‘X applying/applied, Y invited’ within the role.

• After clicking the above, select the candidate’s name from the drop down:

• Then click on the envelope and to be presented with various options:

• To resend an invite code (extend the deadline) please tick ‘Resend email, extending deadline date from today?’
• To resend an invite code and also reset their previous answers (to give the candidate another try) check the box against ‘Resend email, extending deadline date from today?’ and ‘Reset any previously answered questions?’.
  

A CANDIDATE NEEDS TO RE-RECORD AN INTERVIEW QUESTION

If a candidate makes a mistake on a recorded interview question or for another reason they need to re-record their answer, you can reset a question for them.

• Go to the role in Shine.
• Select this section of the role card: 

• Then from the dropdown of candidates, choose the candidate you wish to reset a question for:

• Select ‘i’ icon for Application Information:

In the pop up window, scroll down to Questions and press reset against the question to be re-recorded (please note this will delete the existing answer from the candidate) and you will get a warning on screen “Are you sure”…

CANDIDATES WAITING FOR ANSWERS TO UPLOAD

Another common query from candidates to Shine’s support desk is that they have been waiting a long time for their answers to upload to the system and haven’t had a confirmation email to say this is complete yet. Uploads are usually fast however can take some time if the processing power is low on the device the candidate is using. 

When this happens, ask the candidate if they’re using a mobile app, to close the app down and re-enter their invite code. All answers are stored in the app if available, so by re-entering this code the upload process would start again. 

On the mobile app

If the questions haven’t been saved to the app and they are taken back to answer a question, this means there has been a drop in internet connection when the candidate was recording their answers and they would need to re-complete at the point the app takes them back to.

On desktop computer

If the candidate is using a computer, ask them to close the screen and re-enter their code. Please note that the videos are not saved for upload on a computer so they would need to re-record all of their answers.

INVALID INVITE CODE

Candidates may contact you to say that their invite code is invalid. An invite code would only expire after the deadline has passed. In this instance check the invite email sent to the candidate and ask them to confirm their deadline date. 

If an extension is to be offered, please repeat the steps above to reset this and issue a new deadline.

JOBTRAIN STEPS AND SETUP

There are two methods to trigger a video interview invite to candidates in Jobtrain:

• Method 1: using the integrated Invite to Video button option which can be accessed via the list of candidates’ page or from a candidate’s record.
• Method 2: via a status change.

Which method is best for me?

If you are utilising the status change method (method 2), you can only link one status to each set of video interview questions, so a different candidate status would be needed for each set of questions.  

The integrated Invite to Video feature option (method 1) allows you to choose which set of video interview questions you would like to invite each candidate to complete so allows more flexibility. For clients that have created multiple different video interviews in Shine this is typically the preferred method.

Creating video interview statuses

To ensure video interviewing automates and links up with Shine Video Interviewing, a standard video interview status must be created to add in System Customisation (more on that later). Depending on how you intend to invite candidates to video interviewing, individual statuses based on the ‘role’ and interview questions in Shine will need to be created, which we’ll outline in this guide.

First step is to create two candidate application statuses - one to invite the candidate to video interview and one that Jobtrain will update the candidate to when the video interview is completed.

CREATE A STANDARD VIDEO INTERVIEW AND VIDEO INTERVIEW COMPLETE STATUS

Go to Settings > General Settings > Candidate Application Statuses and select New Status.

From here, add a status name (use something generic for this standard video interview status) for example ‘Invited to Video Interview’ and a 'candidate friendly' status name. 

Press Save to create the status.

Then create another status that will be used for the video interview complete status for example ‘Video Interview Complete’.

You do not have to add an email to the candidate application statuses as the integration takes care of the email content (this was configured in the setup steps of creating your video interviews in Shine).

CREATING A VIDEO INTERVIEW STATUS LINKED TO A SHINE VIDEO INTERVIEW 

Go to Settings > General Settings > Candidate Application Statuses and select New Status.

From here, add a status name and ensure the name indicates the Shine video interview questions it is linked to, such as ‘Video Interview – Marketing roles’. Then add a 'candidate friendly' status name.

A Video Interviewing section near the bottom of the page will also be displayed. Toggle on the Start Video Interview option and select the relevant video interview (created in Shine Video Interview) from the select an interview option.

Press Save to create the status.

You do not have to add an email to the candidate application statuses as the integration takes care of the email content (this was configured in the setup steps of creating your video interviews in Shine).

Assigning the generic statuses to System Customisation

After creating your standard statuses, go to Settings > System Customisation. 

From within the Customise tab, add the two standard video interview statuses you’ve just created i.e. Invited to Video Interview and Video Interview Complete in the Application Statuses section (highlighted below).

Press Save. 

Enabling access to review and invite candidates to Video Interviews 

For users to be able to invite candidates to video interviews and review the interviews you need to enable access in the relevant security roles. 

To do so, go to Settings > Security Roles. 

Click on the name of the relevant security role to edit. 

Navigate to the Jobs & Talent Pools tab, then scroll down to List Candidate - Video Interview and toggle on the first three buttons.

Press Save. You are now ready to invite your candidates to complete their video interviews. 

Inviting to video interview

When you are ready to invite candidates to take a video interview, depending on setup method selected you can either invite them to a chosen interview from the list of interviews, or simply change their status to trigger the invite email to be sent.

Method 1 - Use the Video Interview button 

Method 2 - Update the candidate status

Both options will trigger the invite email to send including the candidate’s unique access code. 

Inviting using the Video Interview button

Use the left menu Video Interview button to manually invite candidates to complete a video interview. This option is useful if you wish to invite candidates within one job to various interviews without setting up lots of different video interview statuses. Either check the box against all your chosen candidates, then select the Video Interview button from the Assess menu; or select the Video Interview button under Assess from within the candidate’s record. A window will be displayed. Check the candidate(s) included are correct and select the relevant video interview from the Select an interview option.  Press Invite to complete the action.

These candidate(s) will receive an invite email containing a link to take their interview along with their individual access code. 

The candidate(s) status will then auto update to the Invite to Interview Status set in System Customisation. 

Each candidate’s record will also include a new Video Interview section where you can view the interview once completed.

The candidate's unique invite code will be included at the top of the Video interview tab.

Inviting to video interview using a status change

From the candidates listing page:

Check the box next to the candidate(s). From Change Status To select the Invited to Video Interview status from the list of options – only select a video interview status that has a Shine video interview attached to it.

Tip: Use search as you type functionality here to find the status you are looking for quickly.

In the pop up box, check the candidate(s) included are correct and add any required notes. Press Save to complete the action.

You can change multiple candidates' statuses using this method. Notes added in this section will appear in the candidate notes section.

From a candidate’s record:

Select the relevant status from the dropdown menu against the candidate’s name within their record.

A window will pop up. Check the candidate included is correct and add any required notes. Press Save to complete the action.

Reviewing interviews

When a candidate has completed their video interview, their status will update to the one added in System Customisation.

When viewing a candidate's record, you will be able to review the video interview by selecting More and Video Interview from the options, then click the Interview link:

You will then be redirected to Shine to review the candidate’s video interview. There are options within Shine to score and rate the candidate however this doesn’t integrate with Jobtrain so any scoring and notes added in Shine would not pull back into Jobtrain.

FAQS

Is there an option to carry out the pre-recorded interview through audio?

Currently, Shine does not offer an audio option however, there is the option to provide the question as a video.

If a candidate doesn't complete the video interview and only answers 3 out of 5 questions for example - what would happen to their pre-recorded video interview? Would it still get pushed into Jobtrain? 

If a candidate leaves their interview and re-joins, they would be taken to the last question they had answered. 

If they tried to re-join after the deadline, they would not be able to gain access. Their application would then show as 'part completed' in Shine and sit separately from the 'completed' applications. The part-completed applications are also not pushed into Jobtrain so you wouldn't have to worry about shortlisting these candidates.

If you have any further questions about Video Interviewing or would like to explore adding this functionality to your Jobtrain platform, please contact our Support Team or your Client Success Consultant on +44 (0)161 8502004.