The job interview is getting technical
Published Saturday November 15th, 2008
Globalization Skype allows N.B. recruiters to hire from anywhere in the world
Hoping to increase the educated workforce in southern New Brunswick and prepare the area for an anticipated labour shortage, one economic development agency is taking the next step in the evolution of the job interview.
In an effort to enhance the bilingual workforce in the region, Enterprise Saint John will be sending representatives on behalf of regional businesses to recruitment fairs in France and Belgium as part of a workforce expansion drive.
But what separates this event from other job fairs is the way qualified candidates will be interviewed.
Using Skype, a software program that allows telephone calls and video conferencing over the Internet, employers will now be able to see prospective employees without leaving their office and without the candidate leaving their country.
"Sometimes it can be challenging to close the loop when you come back from these recruitment events," said Sarah Stashick, co-ordinator of Life on Your Terms, an information source for people considering moving to the region. "You can lose candidates, things get unclear or details get lost. This way, we're getting some immediate, tangible results from these recruitment missions."
People aren't likely to just pick up and relocate if they don't have a job, and it can be difficult to properly qualify a candidate when they're at a distance from the interviewer.
The recruitment fair hopes to change that, and is set up in such a way that representatives can do a pre-screening of candidates through private interviews, and then connect an employer face-to-face with the most qualified applicants via Skype.
"It can be difficult to do a phone interview if you're a job seeker, or as an employer it can be difficult to assess someone over the phone without having those visual cues," Stashick said. "If you're a job seeker, you want to have some level of comfort, especially if you're going to be moving overseas. You want to have confidence that you've made the right choice. In order to feel that, usually people need to have some sense of connection either to the individual or the community."
First released in 2005, with its videoconferencing coming online in 2006, Skype has since ballooned to over 300 million users worldwide. Part of a massive wave of nearly-instantaneous, worldwide communications systems, it seems only natural that employers would take advantage of Skype to help broaden their labour pool.
"We know from listening to employers that in some skill areas, they're tapping out their talent base," said Heather Chase, executive director of the workforce expansion program. "So we really need to look at external recruitment outside of the regional market."
Already the norm in tech-friendly sectors like information technology, Chase said as the workforce globalizes, this type of interview will become more common for other sectors as well.
As the large-scale projects in southern New Brunswick become a reality, she said, the region will be in desperate need of engineers, a gap that could be filled through an international recruitment mission such as this one. As well, Chase points out, there are regional labour shortages in health care, accounting and trades.
As the job market gets more and more competitive, she said, employers will capitalize on anything that helps facilitate a long-distance interview.
"It's the way we're going to be moving more and more in the future," she said. "We're moving into a sellers market for individuals."
Stashick just wants to make sure employers in the region are aware of this technological trend.
"We're just trying to make sure that word gets out to businesses that aren't using this technology that they really need to get on it, and how critical it is in today's market," she said. "Every community is competing for these same folks, so we need to make sure that we meet them where they live."
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