Q. It has been three years since Video Recruit was formed. Tell us about your journey

A. It basically began three years ago when I was looking for a career change. I was the Regional IT Director for Havas Worldwide in Prague when the co-founder of Video Recruit approached me with this idea of automated video interviewing. He was visiting his brother in the US who was running a chain of hotels and completely frustrated with the idea of having to sit through another interview. It was then he came up with the concept of automated video interviewing. The co-founder came back to Prague and then approached me. That’s how it started. The journey has been absolutely amazing. Building a start-up is one of the most professionally satisfying things one can do. The experience of building every aspect of your business and your network is absolutely amazing.

Q. In this social age, how important will video platforms become? Why should a recruiter opt for Video Recruit and not conduct the interview with other social media tools like Google hangouts or Skype?

A. Google hangouts and Skype are great video tools. But they require both sides to schedule a date and time and commit half an hour to an hour of their time for the interview. Both those things are eliminated in automated video interviews. Google hangouts and Skype are perfect for the next round of interviews. Once you have the list of candidates whom you know are interesting, have an interactive interview over Skype or Google. To invest more than an hour on a candidate based on his/her CV alone is proving to be extremely inefficient. We position the video interview as a screening tool. In most cases, the CV is not that informative. Some candidates oversell themselves, while some undersell. We combine the CV and the automated video interview so that you are able to verify the information on the CV. For example, if a person says that s/he has great communication skills, you can check for yourself if they do by asking them questions and see them reacting spontaneously during the video interview. It helps you eliminate people who don’t fit the bill. It doesn’t necessarily tell you whom to hire but definitely who is unsuitable. You are sure to end up with a 5-start shortlist.

Q. Do you think video interviews will replace face-to-face interviews soon?

A. Automated video interviews should never replace face-to-face interviews. We don’t believe any company should use automated video interviewing as a selection tool but purely as a screening tool. The automated video interview gives you a lot of information about the candidate but before you hire them, the company should definitely invest time to meet the candidates face-to-face.

Q. Video Recruit wants a slice of the 220 billion euros recruitment market. Yet you chose to target Europe by setting up your headquarters there instead of the US. Why? How do you see the India story developing?

A. We know that one-third of the recruitment market belongs to the US, one third to Europe and one third to the rest of the world. By being in Prague, we can still tap two thirds of the market. The recruitment challenges in Europe, Asia and Africa are very different to those in the US. Since we are based right in the heart of Europe, we built the platform with 11 languages and we keep adding more. Our team is also multi-national. We believe that we are the right partner for this part of the world.

About the India story, we think it is a great and exciting opportunity. Just the geography of the country makes it difficult for the companies to have access to the talent pool. We remove that constraint and make them available at a very low cost, which is an attractive proposition for companies. Using Video Recruit, the companies can be assured of a better quality hire, which is actually the main value add that we provide.