Rusty Rueff

My first real corporate job out of college was as a Personnel Trainer at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Engines in East Hartford, CT. It was at the end of my first year there that the company introduced this computer communication system that allowed for us to send messages instantly to other people just by typing in their name and writing a few short lines. We had just recently been trained on how to use another system called voicemail so this idea of being able to also communicate using your desktop computer was quite novel. Of course, this was the beginning of email and as we look back now, it seems crazy that we had to be convinced, or change-managed, into using this new productivity application.

The same is about to happen with captured video interviews. Right now it seems novel to some and unorthodox to others, but I predict that in a few short years we will look back at this time and have the same reactions to video interviewing as email, voicemail and all other standard work applications that are today, normal course of business systems.

The time is now because the rest of the world is moving this way. Voicemail worked in the office because we had been using answering machines at home long before they made their way to the workplace. Email worked because we had already become accustomed to fax machines where we could hand write or type messages and then deliver them electronically. Captured video interviewing’s time is now because we are already using video conferencing, Cisco’s Telepresence, Skype, iChat and now the iphone 4′s camera on the front of the phone. It is also captured video interviewing’s time because there is an emphasis on productivity and standardization inside of the office with efficiency and convenience as a priority for candidates, and all parties are interested and concerned about going green.

Beyond all of this, any of us who have been in the Talent space for more than a decade are so ready for a breakthrough of thinking and technology that can brings us real learning on how to better query and assess candidates. To date, I haven’t seen anything with more potential to radically change and improve the art and science of interviewing than what can happen when captured video interviewing is applied to business. Improvement and learning can only happen when there is a standard platform without variability and randomness. Captured video interviewing is the first right step to establishing a consistent and predictable and controlled platform for improvement.

Trust me, our kids will be laughing when we tell them about how we used to interview for jobs before captured video interviews came along.

———————–

Guest Blogger Rusty Rueff writes about the changing face of HR for the HireVue Blog and is a member of HireVue’s Board of Directors. He was most recently CEO of SNOCAP, the digital music commerce provider for MySpace, before being acquired by imeem in April 2008. Previously, Rusty held several HR leadership roles with PepsiCo and was Executive Vice President of HR for Electronic Arts. Rusty is co-author of “Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business” (Prentice-Hall. 2006).

In the market today you see a constant barrage of employment guides, books, authors and gurus preaching “Hire the best you possibly can!” or “Only hire A players”. Two of my favorites are:

Brad Smart – Top Grading

Rusty Rueff and Hank Stringer – Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business

But just how important is top talent to an organization? In this case to Lufthansa and the 200+ people on the plane – hiring top talent was the difference between life and death.

CNN provided coverage here

In our client companies, great talent can mean the difference between profit and loss or success and failure. They use video interview services powered by HireVue and our structured interview platform to help build teams and hire “A” players like they never could before.

In this case however, Lufthansa takes the cake – they hire A players. Anybody who can maneuver a A330 like a fighter jet in 100 kph crosswinds is an All-Star. Anybody who hires that person must look pretty good too.