Pre-recorded video interview: +20 ideas for questions based on the profile you want to recruit

Pre-recorded video interview: are there any specific questions to ask depending on the profile you're looking for?

As in a traditional interview, you adapt your questions according to several factors. Don't forget that the questions in a pre-recorded video interview will be asked to all the candidates for the same job. You therefore need to think about the profile type you want to recruit and adapt the questions that will enable you to detect it among all the candidates.

There are 3 main points on which you can propose different questions depending on the level of seniority expected for a position.

Level of experience

This question type generally provides a summary of what the candidate has been able to achieve so far. For a senior profile, you will be asked to describe one or more significant experiences. For a more junior profile, the question may focus on skills learned rather than significant experience.

But the level of experience is entirely relative, especially depending on the position you are offering. For some jobs, experience isn't the most important thing, and you're looking more for personality and motivation. If that's the case, forget this type of question, which will teach you nothing, and replace it with soft skills questions.

If you really need someone with a lot of experience, ask at least one question about experience, but adapt it to your needs so that the candidate knows exactly how to record their answer. For example: ‘Tell us about your various professional experiences’ would become ‘What professional experiences could help you to develop in the international context of our company?

Good to know: don't forget that the pre-recorded video interview helps you to detect candidates' personalities in a very short space of time. Wouldn't a question about experience in the broadest sense (and not just professional experience) be useful to better understand your candidate as a person?

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Career perspectives

How do your candidates see their professional future in general and within your company? What are their goals?

These questions are very important in determining whether your candidate is looking to the long term and what they can bring to the table today, in the months to come and even several years from now. It can also help you to see whether their personality matches what you're looking for.

While learning and development are open to all levels of seniority (you're never too old to learn!), questions about training and development are generally more appropriate for junior profiles. It's important to identify the development potential of these profiles, especially in terms of skills. Pre-recorded video interviews make this possible.

For more senior profiles, you might consider asking a question that focuses more on how they have managed their internal mobility so far. Have they held several positions? Have they progressed from an operational position to a responsible one? This may give you an idea of how these experienced profiles react to change or opportunities within a company.

Whether or not to manage

Obviously, if you're looking for a managerial profile, you'll need to adapt your pre-recorded video interview questions. Depending on how important this specific point is for the job itself, you can either ask one fairly generic question, or split it into two.

If you ask a single question on this point, you need to be able to identify two things quickly:

• whether or not the candidate has already managed and in what way
• whether the candidate has the right mindset to manage in your company

So think of a question that will enable you to identify both. For example: ‘In your opinion, what are the 3 qualities of a good manager and why?

If the profile you're looking for is predominantly a manager, especially for larger teams or with a high hierarchical level, you can split the question into two parts:

• An initial, fairly standard question on management experience
• A situational question, with the option of whether or not to prepare, particularly suited to the pre-recorded video interview format. For example: ‘You're at an employee annual review and your employee tells you he wants to leave the company. How would you react?

Tip: personalize pre-recorded video interview questions without “closing” them

It's a good idea to adapt your questions to make them more personal. But they must not make a candidate feel excluded.

For example, you could be dealing with a senior profile who is fully motivated to take on the responsibilities of a junior profile. Even if you think your job is suitable for young graduates, avoid closing the door on more experienced people who may be just what you need.

In concrete terms, if you're thinking of asking the following question: ‘During your studies, what was the most important project for you?’, open it up: ‘During your career (studies, work experience, etc.), what was the most important project for you? You'll maximize your chances of finding that rare gem, no matter how senior they are.

The right pre-recorded video interview questions for each recruitment stage

The pre-recorded video interview can be used at several moments in the recruitment process. Of course, you need to adapt your questionnaire to this specific situation. For example, if you use the pre-recorded video interview after an initial interview, don't include any introductory questions (or just one), and instead ask more in-depth questions about personality or how you see the job, the company, etc.

Let's take 3 examples. 

• If the questionnaire is sent out with each new application for a position

Be careful and don't let your candidate do their pre-recorded video interview without any information about this part of the process. You could lose them!

The first part of your questionnaire could be a video question in which you introduce yourself and the company and explain why you are asking your candidate to do this pre-recorded video interview. At the end of your video, play up the connivance, by asking, for example: ‘Now that I've introduced myself, could you do the same in 1 minute?’

For the next few questions, think about getting to know your candidate: who is he or she? Why is he or she motivated to join you? 

• If the questionnaire is sent to help you choose between several profiles already well advanced in the recruitment process

The pre-recorded video interview can be used to pre-qualify and shortlist candidates, but it can also be adapted to other moments in the recruitment process. After an initial HR interview, for example, you can consider a questionnaire that goes into greater depth on several topics that are of particular interest for the position. This could involve role-playing, questions detailing the candidate's vision on a specific topic, or specific examples to be given on a particular mission.

Often, the pre-recorded video interviews recorded at this stage will be watched by you as well as by the candidate's future managers and potentially future teams. This is the perfect opportunity to work with them to design the questionnaire so that, after the generic questions asked during the initial contacts, the questions relate more specifically to the way the team operates, future projects, the personalities of each individual, etc.

• If it's a test questionnaire

One of the great advantages of the pre-recorded video interview is that it can also be used to conduct test questionnaires. Prepare a few questions to quickly identify whether your candidate can meet your needs in terms of both interpersonal and technical skills. For example, you could ask the candidate to speak in a foreign language relevant to the job, to see if the language level is sufficient for the position.

You could also suggest a role-playing situation, especially for positions requiring easy contact. For example, for a future customer relations manager, ask them to react to a particular request in a 30-second video, without preparing their response.

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To sum up, as in a traditional interview, adapt your questions to the specific profile you are looking for. Defining the job and the skills (hard skills and soft skills) is therefore more than essential!

But unlike in face-to-face or video interviews, be particularly careful to ask open-ended questions, because you won't be able to bounce back as you would in a normal interview. This is an opportunity to assess all your candidates on the same basis.

And don't hesitate to use all the options open to you with the pre-recorded video interview: vary the type of questions (written, video), adapt the preparation time according to the level of spontaneity required, co-construct your questionnaire with the teams to facilitate group assessment, etc.

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