Why to record interviews and how to do it right

With the rise of interviews happening over video and phone calls in the post-pandemic world, there’s more data than ever to harness and learn from in conversations you have with candidates. Each interview is a trove of data, ready to be captured and leveraged to increase efficiency in the hiring process and make more informed decisions. 

As a result, interview recording is an increasingly commonplace practice that forward-thinking, high-performing organizations are taking advantage of to level up their hiring. Tools like Metaview build on top of interview recordings to give hiring teams access to game-changing productivity improvements and deeper candidate insights. 

What are the benefits of recording interviews?

Recording interviews can level-up your hiring process in a number of ways:  

• Save time and increase efficiency in your hiring process. Platforms like Metaview leverage interview recordings to offer added benefits like AI-generated interview summarization which makes context sharing, calibration, and decision making much more efficient.
• Give candidates the attention they deserve. When recruiters and interviewers don’t have to worry about taking notes in the moment, they can focus 100% on the candidate. No distractions or furiously typing while trying to have a real conversation with the person on the other end.
• Increased visibility for the whole team into what happens in interviews. By recording interviews, you can give other members of the hiring team visibility into candidates’ performance without them having to synchronously join the discussion. And whenever there’s a point that needs further examination, the hiring team can go straight to the game-tape to see what the candidate actually said. 
• Capture a perfect record of everything that was discussed in interviews. Unlike human’s subjective and unreliable memories, interview recordings ensure you have perfect data on everything discussed in interviews with candidates. So you have comprehensive, accurate data on candidates to refer back to and don’t have to rely on fuzzy memories or incomplete, manually-taken notes or scorecards. 

What do candidates think about interview recording?

You might still be wondering, “But how will my candidates feel about having their interviews recorded?”. The answer is they will most likely be on-board with it too. Candidates understand that recording interviews means they’re getting a fair process, where the hiring team is more likely to be making decisions based on objective evidence rather than memories or “gut feel”. Candidates also understand that alleviating the note-taking burden for the interviewer means that they can have a real conversation, without any distractions. At Metaview, we see a 95%+ opt-in rate of candidates agreeing to have their interviews recorded. 

With the proliferation of AI-based co-pilots and note-takers, general meeting recordings are becoming increasingly commonplace, so it’s also a behavior that candidates are becoming more familiar with across all of their workplace interactions. 

Is it ok to record interviews? 

Another common question that comes up is whether it’s actually okay to record interviews. Interview recording is a widely adopted, legally-sound practice. There are of course certain privacy and data protection obligations that need to be followed when collecting and storing this kind of data. 

The key regulations to keep in mind here are GDPR (in Europe) and CCPA (in the California/US). Regulations around the world have either equivalent or lesser requirements than these two laws, so any organization that follows the best practices outlined here should be covered globally. We’ve talked to data privacy experts to give you a checklist of what to do at each stage of the hiring process to make sure you’re recording interviews the right way. 

Practical checklist for how to record interviews

Before the interview

• The golden rule of recording interviews is to always ensure the candidate is informed. Before the interview, you’ll want to make sure you notify candidates about why you’d like to record the interview and what you’ll use the recording for.
• You’ll then need to ensure you give candidates the right to object to having their interview recorded. 

During the interview 

• As with any interview, be sure to stick to compliant questions that don’t encourage the candidate to reveal sensitive information that isn’t relevant to the interview process. 

After the interview 

Once the interview is complete, there are a few best practices to keep in mind when it comes to using and potentially storing the recording. 

• As with any time you’re handling data, you should only retain the recording for as long as you need it, for the purposes you stated, and the data should be stored securely. 
• Bear in mind that candidates have the right to access any data you store on them. That includes their side of the interview recording. They can also request for it to be deleted.

The importance of using a recruiting-specialized recording solution

To make compliance painless, it’s important to choose a tool that’s specifically built to handle the nuances of the employer-candidate relationship. As the one that owns the relationship with the candidate, you as the hiring organization are the data “controller” and responsible for making sure that these obligations are met. Generic note-taking or meeting recording tools aren’t built with the sensitivities of this relationship in mind. That’s why you’ll want to choose a solution that understands the specifics of recording in a recruiting-specific context. 

Metaview makes compliant interview recording a breeze by providing: 

• A ready-made solution for elegant consent handling with candidates
• Role-based access controls to ensure only those who need to access interview recordings are able to
• Data storage that meets strict security standards
• Specialized privacy features like the ability to redact sensitive information from transcripts/recordings and even a solution for getting AI-generated summaries of your interviews without the need to take a recording at all

To learn more about Metaview’s privacy and security standards, and to get started for free, head over to https://www.metaview.ai/privacy. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out! We’d love to help.