There are some cases when candidates are distant from you, and your firm will not pay for face-to-face interviews. While this carries a great deal more risk, Manager Tools recognizes that what’s ideal and what’s possible are often far apart. We give guidance on what’s possible.

You can substitute a series of phone/video interviews for the full day of face-to-face interviews described in the next chapters. But you increase your risk of a bad hire.

In that case, conduct several video interviews following the full-day format described in upcoming chapters. Have several of your directs interview the candidate for an hour or longer. Then you conduct (yes, even after your original phone screen) a one-to-two hour video interview.

Video is almost always preferable to a phone interview. It is well established that a great deal of the information we gather communicating with others involves facial expressions and body language (beyond just the words they say and how they say them, which is all a phone screen gives us).

The one case when a series of phone screens alone may be tolerable is when limited bandwidth creates frequently dropped calls and an inability to develop the feeling that you’re having a normal face-to-face conversation. We still recommend that you consider the logistics of having the candidate or your interviewers go somewhere where bandwidth is not an issue.