Madeline Mann breaks down HireVue's one-way video interviews: how employers use them to sort candidates, what the AI actually scores you on, and the five questions that always come up. Three concrete moves improve your chances: clear audio, higher energy, and matching your answers to the job's specific competencies.
Questions this video answers
3–6 video questions.
2–3 game questions (short cognitive/brain-teaser-style tasks).
About 30 seconds to prepare, and between 30 seconds and 3 minutes to answer (depending on employer settings).
Approximately 15–25 minutes to complete both video and game questions (host’s verbal estimate).
Three tiers: high, middle, and low potential; recruiters then decide to advance or reject.
Chapters
You have to do a one way interview on a platform like HireVue and you're thinking how will my interview be scored? What will be asked? Did every candidate get this interview? In this video you will get all of those answers and more. So I'm going to give you all this one way information. If you could give me some two way love in the comments. If you're new here, this is self made Millennial. I'm Madeline Mann. I am a human resources leader and job search strategist. You may have seen me in these places New videos on Thursdays. A years ago I created a similar video to this discussing sparkhire, another one way interview platform and these success stories came rolling in. Check out this viewer Brian. He landed a job offer having done a one way interview for the first time for a role he had no experience in. Heck yes. And it's time for this to happen to you too. I'll also link that video below and stay to the end because I will tell you how the AI scores scores your interview and three tips to improve your score. So why did the company send you a HireVue interview and does everyone else get one? Hirevue and other one way interview platforms are meant to help sort candidates into essentially three piles. High, medium and low potential. I'll explain more how this works later. Therefore, I am so sorry to tell you, but likely everyone received this invitation to submit a HireVue interview. I know. It's like seeing one of those webpage banners that says you you won click to redeem your prize only for it to occur to you that every sad lad and lassie is getting the same false hope. But stay tuned for later because your fairy job mother is here to give you three tips to help propel you to the next round. Now according to HireVue, a typical assessment will include three to six video questions and two to three game questions. Now, game questions are short brain teaser games used to measure skills relevant to your job. They are math games where you have to do quick math, memory games, spatial games where you have to move blocks around to make different shapes. I love brain teasers. I will literally do hours of Sudoku every week, but I'm not convinced that these prove that you'll be a good employee. What do you think? Put in the comments. Brain teasers work or brain teasers don't work? To share whether or not you think this is a good way to assess candidates, you will have around 5015 to 25 minutes to complete both the video and the game questions. So you need to Be prepared and you need to be concise. Fortunately, there are questions that come up over and over again in these one way interviews. It's like listening to a top 40 station playing the same songs. So here are the top five questions asked on HireVue and how to answer them. For each question you will have 30 seconds to prepare and then between 30 seconds and three minutes to answer depending on the what the hiring manager chose. No matter how much time they give, you do not feel pressured to use the full time. If you can deliver powerful descriptive answer while not extending it out to three minutes, that's a win. The first and most commonly asked question is Tell me about yourself. Is anyone surprised by this? This question is arguably the most important question in the interview because it sets the tone and can be very easy to mess up. For this answer, you'll want to keep your answer concise and focused on what makes right for the role, not who you are personally. To help you craft the perfect answer, I do have a free cheat sheet that thousands of people have found so much success with, so I'll link it below. Second is what are your long term career plans? This is a similar question to where do you see yourself in five years? And this question will get you instantly rejected, so listen closely. They are asking you this question to see if this role is in line with your future plans or or if you're just going to hightail it out of here as soon as you find a role closer to your interests. Such as if you are interviewing for a marketing role and you say that you hope to transition into product management in the future, you likely just lost the job. I have so much to say on this and I will link a video playlist below that has the top five hire view questions where I will go in depth in each video on how to answer them. Now if I included all of that information in this video, it would be longer than watching Gone with the Wind. Third is what made you leave your previous job? Hiring managers ask this question because they're focused on extending offers to people they believe will be the best fit. One of the methods they use to determine if you're a good fit is understanding what work situations you liked or didn't like in the past. Fourth is Tell me about your strengths and weaknesses. There's a few intentions here. They want to make sure that this role plays to your strength and doesn't rely on your weaknesses. They also want to make sure that you are self aware. Therefore you want to answer honestly but not too honestly. I have seen a lot of people get themselves rejected here, so head to that playlist for the full formulas. Last but not least is why do you want to work here? This question is asked to make sure you legitimately want this job and not just any job, because they don't want you to leave quickly when something else comes your way. For this answer, you'll want to focus on things that are specific to the role and the company, not things that are extrinsic like remote work or the salary. I have linked the full playlist below where you can really perfect all of these answers to these top five questions. Now how is a HireVue interview scored? HireVue uses specialized AI to score your interview. Not only are robots taking your jobs, but they're also deciding if you can have one. According to HireVue's AI short form explanation, the AI will place your interview into one of three categories based on calculations that determining how close you are to the company's selected criteria. Once categorized, the recruiter will decide to reject or advance the candidate. Here is a diagram provided by hirevue about the decisions recruiters will make based on the scoring of your interview. If you land in the top tier, you will typically pass the next round. If you land in the middle or lower tier, there's a chance that they will give your interview another look see before they determine if you'll advance or not. I know what you're thinking. How do I get in that dang top tier? I've got you. Here are three tips that will help you to improve your score on your one way HireVue interview. Tip number one make sure your video has high quality audio and talk clearly. And limit background noise because the AI will transcribe your audio to text and then score it from there. Tip 2 add a bit more kick to your energy level than normal. The camera adds 10 pounds, but it subtracts five cups of coffee so a bit more energy than usual will come across as normal and will help to capture the attention of folks who end up watching the interview. My approach is to put on a pump up song before I hit record to get my vibes high. My favorite song to put on is you're the first, the Last My Everything by Barry White My Last My Everything.
Write your pump up song in the comments below. If you want more tips on how to impress the interviewer during a video interview, how to prep how to be memorable, I will link a video on how to do a video interview below. Tip 3 the AI scores your answer according to the company's selected competencies they are looking for from the candidate companies select competencies like adaptability, communication, decisiveness, so on. And the AI scores these competencies by comparing pre inputted answers with your answers. So this is different for nearly every role. But as an example, point 72, which is a hedge fund, asks questions about how you would calculate a company's annual revenue and then compares that answer to what they deem to be an effective answer. Best of luck on your interviews like this video and subscribe to this channel. You've got this wi fi high five.
