“Interview as a Service” refers to the outsourcing of the first few waves of detailed technical interviews to industry insiders and professionals. These experts ensure that your internal recruiting team only interacts with a narrow subset of highly qualified potential hires, thereby increasing your interview-to-job-offer ratio. Companies choose Interview-as-a-Service solutions primarily to save money and expedite the recruiting process.

How Does Interview as a Service Work?

Typically, Interview as a Service typically works by outsourcing the technical evaluation of candidates in the first round by making use of a network of verified industry practitioners. The assessments are conducted via video conference to expedite the employment process. This is the most prevalent model for technical interviews and mass recruiting, since these are among the most skill-intensive and time-consuming hiring processes.

The IaaS (Interview-as-a-Service) breakthrough in the HR industry has radically transformed the manner in which businesses conduct interviews. It facilitates a superior candidate experience at each and every stage, faster screening, a shorter time-to-hire, and the evaluation of candidates rather than resumes by organizations.

There are interview-as-a-service solutions that assist HR administrators to rapidly fill open positions. This is accomplished by delegating candidate evaluation protocols to industry-specific interviewers. Multiple companies have begun utilizing IaaS for improved and more standardized candidate screening.

Why Do You Need Interview as a Service?

Interview as a Service or IaaS is necessary for everyone involved in the hiring process and makes the entire experience much simpler for all stakeholders.

1. Solve the problem of interviewer skill shortage

Interview as a Service provides a curated community of seasoned industry experts as interviewers, working with recruiters and recruiting managers. In addition to technological expertise, these examiners are also trained in the more subjective factors of the interviewing process as well as the candidate experience.

2. Get scalable hiring pipelines

A Service Evaluation additionally addresses the issue of scalability. As quantity and availability limitations of in-house interviewers are lifted, any amount of interviews can be carried out in a day.

3. Address candidate anxiety and hiring delays

An elegantly and smartly designed Interview as a Service is a compilation of pleasurable micro-experiences for candidates. Via frequently employed communication channels such as WhatsApp, emails, etc., applicants can express their interest in a position as well as their preferred interview time. No longer must you wait for the ideal interviewer! Because they have easy access to options such as rescheduling, technical support, etc., the usual trepidation and anxieties are avoided.

4. Level the playing field for applicants

During the interview, each candidate is given a fair and equal opportunity to succeed. The use of standardized question pools to conduct interviews ensures that all competencies are reviewed and that the difficulty level is sustained. Within minutes, in-depth interview feedback is provided alongside a video recording of the interaction.

5. Prevent fraud

Interview as a Service has the potential to effectively combat fraud, a regrettable truth of any employment market. It can also utilize cognitive services through foundational cloud platforms such as Azure and AWS. This results in a solution powered by artificial intelligence that can send out notifications — whenever fraudulent activities such as lip sync, impersonation, etc. are detected.

6. Gain from industry best practices

Interview as a Service was developed after an exhaustive analysis of the most effective interviewing techniques. In FAANG companies, for instance, it is often required to employ external evaluators to assure that somebody from outside the organization is involved in the recruiting process. This eliminates bias and short-term considerations. IaaS seeks to facilitate every recruiting manager’s recourse to such practices.

How to Choose an Interview as a Service Solution?

There are a number of solutions to choose from if you are interested in Interview as a Service. InCruiter, for instance, employs over 2,000 qualified interviewers to carry out interviews on the behalf of businesses. You just source the prospects, and they manage the interviewing process in order to assist you in identifying the best candidate. IT companies can utilize eTeki’s Interviews as a Service to scale and optimize their technical hiring. There are many more options – but how do you choose the best one? Here are the steps:

1. Review the interviewers

According to the job description, it is crucial to evaluate the Interview as a Service provider’s roster of domain-specific experts. It is always preferable to organize a discussion between the technical teams of both organizations, so that the interview panel is cognizant of the evaluation criteria. If the company has a very large network of interviewers, you can meet with a representative group.

2. Check for ease of use

The interface must display all essential recruiting parameters and interview status on an intuitive platform. The value of time is paramount, and therefore you require a platform that streamlines the entire process of directly sharing profiles for evaluation. This not only saves a lot of time but it also enhances the overall assessment turnaround time for every candidate.

3. Ensure proctoring is available as a key feature

One of the major reasons why you require Interview as a Service is because you can no longer dismiss the problem of fraud interviews. It is crucial to maintain a close watch on discussions right from the very beginning. Consequently, proctored interviews aided by artificial intelligence serves an essential function in the composite procedure.

4. Look for trackability

Once interview outsourcing has ended, the process is deemed active or ready for evaluation —  and must be carefully monitored. If it is not well-defined and solely at the discretion of the interviewer, no standards or norms will apply. Therefore, the Interview as a Service solution must specify and monitor the process at every stage. The account manager monitors each profile and conducts prompt, effective interventions to expedite the process.

5. Ask to see the reports and a demo

A thorough interview report is of the utmost importance since it offers a glimpse of the expertise and potential of applicants and eliminates prejudice. This kind of documentation not only assists the company in hiring for the position, but also in the future when filling similar positions. In addition, a demo or trial will provide you with an in-depth view of the company’s platforms and services, allowing you to take informed decisions.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Interview as a Service

AI and ML further adds to the benefits of Interview as a Service and makes the outsourcing processes and interview experience more intuitive.

• Applicants with the necessary skills can be rapidly located from a sizable talent pool using AI. By calculating and supplying scores for each candidate, AI-driven ‘JD to CV Match’ can truly simplify the resume screening process.
• AI and ML can assist in accumulating information about a candidate’s employment history, former job profiles, tasks and duties, achievements, etc., as well as producing an effective set of queries for more in-depth evaluation of their abilities and expertise.
• These technologies also can evaluate a candidate’s current role or position and match it to the profiles of previous employees in the same field.
• An AI-enabled digital assistant allows candidates to plan and reschedule their interviews at their convenience.

Conclusion

Modern recruitment solutions, like Interview as a Service, can considerably improve the recruitment process, allowing for a more effective and efficient way for recruiting top talent. These solutions prioritize the applicant experience, while preserving a standardized and systematic process, guaranteeing that each candidate receives an equal opportunity during the interview. It is a technology-driven but human-led innovation, that combines the best of recruitment automation in the age of AI with specialized interviewing expertise.