Wondering how to shop for video interview software? We've got ideas! And we have three companies that meet our strict criteria. Check out Willo, VidCruiter, and SparkHire if you want a video interview platform with the highest marks. But wait! Before you click away to explore these options, let us tell you how we do our grading.
We've researched video interview platforms for more than five years. This article details our methods and selection criteria and provides the tools to replicate our studies. So stay tuned! By the end of this guide, you'll be an expert on interviewing software.
Hand picked by our HR Technology experts after product testing, user research, and much debate - enjoy!
We’ve updated this guide to reflect the need to conduct video interviews during COVID-19, in addition to all the advice that is relevant during more normal times. We hope it allows your recruiting team to stay nimble and keep moving talent through the funnel despite work-from-home and social distancing protocols.
If you’re looking to qualify more candidates faster, you should definitely start using a video interview solution. HR managers and recruiters are increasingly using these platforms to streamline and expedite their hiring processes as we can see in the data:
While the benefits of video interviewing are many, choosing software solutions that facilitate it can be a tricky process. Our goal with this guide is to save your time, provide you with a shortlist of the best video interview tools, and provide all the other advice your need to make the right purchasing decision. With this guide, you’ll be able to figure out the ROI from video interview software, avoid the common pitfalls of using these solutions, and get in contact with the best vendors in the space.
We take research seriously. To make sure we’re offering our readers the very best solutions in a given software category, we are methodical, rigorous, and expansive in our research. We consult with HR professionals, vendors, and industry experts. We cut through the noise to bring you a carefully curated list of vendors, along with other essential information, to help you find the right software platform for your business.
Here’s how we chose who makes the cut:
Product: We believe in gaining a comprehensive understanding of a product before we recommend it, so we start by getting to know the software. Whenever possible, we meet with a senior executive (CEO or Head of Product) for a demo and Q&A. We also test the product ourselves to make sure it has a solid UI, intuitive workflows, and the features to make it a best-in-class offering.
User feedback: We go straight to the source and compile feedback on user experience. Real-world input supports our commitment to diligence in our software evaluation methods and the products we recommend. Keeping up with the everyday experience of HR pros also puts new vendors on our radar, and it keeps us close to our community so we can better connect the right products to the right people.
Financial metrics: We are certified finance nerds, so we use all the data we can get our hands on to make selections for our guides. We comb through data for concrete statistics like retention rates, growth, profitability, and scalability. We evaluate the bottom line of each product because we know making a software purchase can put your reputation on the line.
Best for a use case: Software is never a one-size-fits-all product. Sometimes the best solution is free or cheap. Other times it’s the one that is best for global companies or the one that’s sized right for early-stage startups. Keeping this in mind, we include solutions across the spectrum so our readers can find the best fit for their unique needs.
Here's more detail if you want to read more about how we research vendors. Our dedicated staff writers rely on hard data, impartial experts, and user feedback to ensure our reviews are helpful, truthful, and hopefully a pleasure to read!
We track thousands of HRTech solutions, these are the best video interview tools per our research and expert council as of 2023.
Why we love it
:
Willo is all about simplifying the hiring process. All their plans, including a free-forever one, pack just enough features for teams with a limited recruitment budget and tight schedules.
Willo
Review:
Willo’s video interview platform is a simple to use tool that companies of all sizes can take advantage of to cut down on the time their recruiting team needs to spend on interviews.
While it doesn’t have the full feature set you may find in a platform that has been around for a decade, this tool is used by many companies with high volume hiring needs, multinational hiring, and seasonal hiring, in addition to smaller companies who want to take advantage of their free tier and generally affordable pricing.
In fact, the lack of feature bloat is somewhat desirable as you’ll find if you check out their free trial. You can literally be sending candidates invites within 15 minutes to branded virtual interview experiences.
We’re also a fan of their transparency: with pricing, their help docs, even a deep dive of their product is available on their homepage (although we suggest having a rep walk you through your specific use cases).
Willo
Customers:
Danone, NHS Scotland, 7 Eleven, Samsung, University of Pennsylvania
Danone, NHS Scotland, 7 Eleven, Samsung, University of Pennsylvania
Willo
Pricing:
Willo has a free tier where you can interview up to 10 people per month. This is great for small companies that want to try video interviewing, or larger companies that want to get a deeper feel for the product before moving to a paid tier.
Otherwise, the product is priced based on the number of users your team has.
We appreciate Willo has transparent pricing that is also accessible to SMBs. In addition to the annual pricing quoted above, they do have month to month plans (annual plans get a 50% discount).
Willo has a free tier where you can interview up to 10 people per month. This is great for small companies that want to try video interviewing, or larger companies that want to get a deeper feel for the product before moving to a paid tier.
Otherwise, the product is priced based on the number of users your team has.
We appreciate Willo has transparent pricing that is also accessible to SMBs. In addition to the annual pricing quoted above, they do have month to month plans (annual plans get a 50% discount).
Best For
Thanks to their varied plans and features, Willo can be a good fit for small teams, freelancers, sole traders, or even large enterprises with high volume review requirements.
Why we love it
:
VidCruiter is a leader in this space—powerful live and prerecorded video interviewing solutions plus highly-rated customer service.
VidCruiter
Review:
Founded in 2012, VidCruiter was one of the first video interview platforms on the market. Users appreciate the live video options offered in addition to pre-recorded. This, among other stand-alone features, allows users to purchase only what they need.
For large organizations with candidates in multiple time zones, pre-recorded interviewing can make a big impact on streamlining the recruitment process. A recorded video can reach hundreds of people at once, and interview results can be ready for evaluation within a week.
To foster fairness, VidCruiter's pre-recorded interviewing product provides a standardized interview for every candidate: same questions set, same allowed time, and same attempt limits.
While teams with high-volume hiring needs find recorded video interviewing helpful, the live video interviewing product is great for facilitating interaction opportunities between the interview panel and candidates.
During the live interview, the interviewer’s screen displays the candidate, a standardized question set, and a rating guide for efficient assessment in real-time. The product also has a feature for candidates to get their technology ready before the interview starts.
User feedback on VidCruiter's customer service is very positive, owing to 24/7 live agent support. Customers also praised the responsiveness and knowledge of assigned account managers.
VidCruiter is not the cheapest option in the video interviewing market. It also doesn’t provide a free trial, meaning you must pay to see whether the software works for you.
VidCruiter
Customers:
Lowe’s, Lionsgate, Samsung, Bears, US Foods, United Nations.
VidCruiter is used by more than 100,000 recruiters, including Lowe’s, Lionsgate, Samsung, Bears, US Foods, and the United Nations.
VidCruiter
Pricing:
VidCruiter pricing depends on the hiring frequency, so it’s best to contact the vendor directly for a quote.
Contact Vidcruiter for a quote.
Best For
Medium to large-sized companies that hire at least 100 people per year. Also works well for both US-based and global enterprises.
Why we love it
:
Trusted by over 6,000 organizations of all sizes across the globe, Spark Hire’s video interviewing platform promises to speed up your candidate screening process by 5 times.
SparkHire
Review:
Spark Hire boasts over 6,000 customers, by far the most of any video interview software company. While many of their customers are small and medium sized businesses, they do have larger enterprise customers including brand names like Volkswagen, Ikea, and BAE, as well as nearly 1,000 staffing agencies. This is a great solution to get video interviews up and running fast.
SparkHire
Customers:
USPS, Ikea, Volkswagen, Bae Systems, Love’s
USPS, Ikea, Volkswagen, Bae Systems, Love's
SparkHire
Pricing:
SparkHire has four plans:
The platform also offers a 20% discount for annual subscriptions on Lite, Pro, and Growth plans.
SparkHire has four plans:
The platform also offers a 20% discount for annual subscriptions on Lite, Pro, and Growth plans.
Best For
SparkHire can be used by companies of all sizes.
Why we love it
:
Once you post your job listing, candidates can share their video applications through the platform. And after the interview, you can review your notes and grade each candidate's interview performance with your team.
MyInterview
Review:
Once you post your job listings, candidates can share their videos responses through myInterview. With myInterview Intelligence, you’ll have a queue always full of candidates up for your consideration. Their machine learning algorithms sift through thousands of videos to reveal the profiles that align with your requirements. When you shortlist candidates for further review, you can then do a live interview – the candidate can select the most convenient time slot through your personalized calendar link.
MyInterview
Customers:
myInterview customer list include prominent names like Ocado, Facebook, Six Flags, Chick-fil-A, and more.
myInterview customer list include prominent names like Ocado, Facebook, Six Flags, Chick-fil-A, and more.
MyInterview
Pricing:
myInterview has with five pricing plans:
myInterview has with five pricing plans:
Best For
Companies of all sizes can use myInterview and derive value while staying within their budgets.
Why we love it
:
Hireflix is all about simplicity; they lead the one-way video interviewing space with a minimalist and modern interface that's super easy to figure out.
Hireflix
Review:
Hireflix is an online, one-way video interviewing platform designed to help hiring teams streamline the recruitment process, hire faster, and provide a seamless candidate experience. Using Hireflix, you can build an asynchronous interview within minutes, send it to hundreds of candidates simultaneously, and share recorded interviews for evaluation with your team.
Hireflix
Customers:
United Nations, IcelandAir, Chick-fil-A, CoinGecko, TravelPerk, and hundreds more.
Hireflix
Pricing:
After a 1-month free trial, Hireflix has three pricing plans that you can choose from. When billed annually, here's what they look like:
All plans allow you to build one-way interviews, invite candidates at scale, and review responses as a team. They also include unlimited users, unlimited active jobs, integrations, and support.
After a 1-month free trial, Hireflix has three pricing plans that you can choose from. When billed annually, here's what they look like:
All plans allow you to build one-way interviews, invite candidates at scale, and review responses as a team. They also include unlimited users, unlimited active jobs, integrations, and support.
Best For
Hireflix is ideal for small and medium businesses that want to focus exclusively on one-way video interviews.
Why we love it
:
Avature’s enterprise-grade video interviewing solution allows you to conduct both live and on-demand interviews efficiently. It also facilitates interview scheduling, be it for 1:1, group, or panel video interviews.
Avature
Review:
Avature offers one of the most sophisticated recruiting software suites out there with an endlessly customizable ATS and CRM perfect for global companies. To keep pace with the demands of remote hiring, they've launched a video interview platform which gives talent acquisition teams a simple to use solution to screen applicants. While it is fully integrated with their broader suite, it can also be used on a standalone basis for companies just looking for video interviewing technology.
Avature
Customers:
Shell, Cisco, L'Oréal, Mondelez, Siemens, KPMG
Avature is used by over 650 companies, including Shell, Cisco, L'Oréal, Mondelez, Siemens, and KPMG.
Avature
Pricing:
The pricing of Avature’s plans isn’t disclosed upfront. Contact an Avature sales representative to get a custom price quote based on the size and needs of your business.
The pricing of Avature’s plans isn’t disclosed upfront. Contact an Avature sales representative to get a custom price quote based on the size and needs of your business.
Best For
Avature is best suited for enterprises.
Why we love it
:
HireVue is a pioneer in the video interviewing software space and stands out from its competitors for its AI-powered on-demand interviews that helps recruiters conduct the initial screening of candidates.
HireVue
Review:
Founded in 2004, HireVue was one of the first few companies in the HR tech space to start the trend of video interviews for job candidates. In its initial days when webcams were not embedded with home computers, HireVue generated the majority of its revenue from selling webcams.
Their video interviewing software lets you conduct both live and asynchronous interviews. They also provide interview guides, templates, and real-time evaluation tools that standardize your interviews and reduce bias. All the interview guides are backed and maintained by experienced organizational psychologists.
HireVue
Customers:
HireVue has customers in a variety of industries ranging from aviation to retail. Some popular names include Amazon, Unilever, Vodafone, Beacon Health System, SmartLynx Airlines, The Co-operative Bank, and National Safety Apparel.
HireVue has customers in a variety of industries ranging from aviation to retail. Some popular names include Amazon, Unilever, Vodafone, Beacon Health System, SmartLynx Airlines, The Co-operative Bank, and National Safety Apparel.
HireVue
Pricing:
HireVue has two pricing plans:
HireVue has two pricing plans:
Best For
Large enterprises who frequently have hiring needs.
Why we love it
:
Interviewstream specializes in video interviewing. Their platform facilitates both live and on-demand interviews, as well as packs features for interviewing prepping and scheduling.
interviewstream
Review:
Interviewstream (previously known as RIVS) helps to streamline your recruiting process with one way and on-demand video platforms. They have more than 900 clients from small businesses to enterprise, along with universities and K12 school districts.
interviewstream
Customers:
Santander, Hershey, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Santander, Hershey, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
interviewstream
Pricing:
The pricing of interviewstream’s plans isn’t disclosed upfront. Contact their Sales team to get a custom price quote.
The pricing of interviewstream's plans isn't disclosed upfront. Contact their Sales team to get a custom price quote.
Best For
Interviewstream is best for medium and large size companies.
Why we love it
:
Not only does Recright have a video interviewing tool that handles both live and pre-recorded interviews, they also have an applicant tracking system (ATS) that complements its video interviewing tool quite well.
Recright
Review:
Recright’s video interview platform is designed to help your TA team hire better quality candidates faster, while also decreasing the time they spend on screening candidates by 50%. This is a factor that leads to their 95% applicant response rate.
Recright
Customers:
Uber, Netflix, Volvo, ABB, KPMG
Uber, Netflix, Volvo, ABB, KPMG
Recright
Pricing:
After the free trial, Recright has three pricing plans. Essential is their basic package for 295 euros per month (about $360). The Pro plan adds extra features, candidates, and users for 445 euros per month (about $540). The Premium plan is custom priced.
After the free trial, Recright has three pricing plans. Essential is their basic package for 295 euros per month (about $360). The Pro plan adds extra features, candidates, and users for 445 euros per month (about $540). The Premium plan is custom priced.
Best For
Recright is most suitable for medium and large-size companies.
Why we love it
:
To avoid scheduling conflicts and interview more candidates at a time, Harver’s one-way interviews tool lets you customize questions for each open role, and invite interviewees to record answers on their own time. But if you prefer two-way interviews, Harver lets you schedule those too.
Harver
Review:
Harver takes a unique approach to the video interviewing process. Instead of facilitating live interviews in real-time, Harver lets your hiring team pre-record questions for the interviewee. Not only does this let the interviewee complete the interview and answer the questions on their own time, but it frees up your hiring team from having to attend countless interviews that feature the same standard questions. Speaking of “same questions”, this also means candidates will get a fair shot at the role with the interview questions and conditions being the same for everyone.
Harver
Customers:
Harver’s pre-employment assessment platform lets you assess candidates, interview individual applicants, verify references, and optimize your hiring process with several built-in automations.
Some of Harver’s customers include Valvoline, McDonald’s, Burger King, Adecco, Booking.com, Arvato, and more.
Harver
Pricing:
Harver offers custom pricing based on each customer’s unique needs. Contact a sales representative for a quote.
Harver offers custom pricing based on each customer’s unique needs. Contact a sales representative for a quote.
Best For
Harver is best suited for medium and large-sized companies looking to expedite candidate reference checking, assessments, and interviews.
The best video interview platforms allow employers and staffing companies to vet larger numbers of candidates quickly, and spend more time with the best fit applicants. Recruiting teams and hiring managers alike can use live video interviews or asynchronous video interviews as a pre-employment screen to that will streamline the interview process.
In addition to saving time, companies can continue to interview and hire top talent in times when it’s harder to meet in person. This is especially true with the rise of COVID-19. But, during more normal times in the world, people’s schedules are still busy. Using virtual interviews to vet candidates can be a great way to quickly move applicants through the hiring process. Virtual interviews are sure to evolve in the future with the rise of AI and virtual reality.
In our research, we came across two types of video interviews. First off is what you’d think of as a typical Skype call where two people are talking to each other via video - these are live video interviews. This is great, but we believe the vast majority of the value to recruiters and hiring managers comes from asynchronous video interviews. In asynchronous video interviews, a candidate answers pre-defined interview questions on their own time, and then the recordings of these answers are reviewed later on by a recruiter.
The process that candidates go through can be customized which makes video interview software much more effective than your typical video conferencing solution like Zoom/Skype. This medium of pre-employment testing ensures that more applicants get a chance to answer interview questions that showcase their skills beyond the resume, but that the interview process doesn’t end up taking more time from talent acquisition team/hiring managers.
A lot of the value is in a recruiter’s ability to vet a candidate by watching a few minutes of video, versus spending 30-45 minutes on the phone with a candidate, plus all the time and effort it takes to schedule and reschedule phone interviews. So, it makes sense that most human resources teams looking to augment their hiring platform look to add video interview software. Here are the key benefits that we see to adding video interviewing to your HRTech Stack:
While we are mainly focusing this research on the corporate HR and recruiting use case for video interviewing, the above vendors serve staffing companies as well, and for good reason. Staffing companies can use video to better understand candidates before presenting them to clients. They can also use the video to show a more human side of a candidate vs just a resume and some notes.
Video interviewing also allows you to ensure you are asking questions which are relevant to your client. This means better alignment, as well as information from the candidate that will allow your client to quickly make a decision on whether or not they want to move forward with a candidate.
Most of the value in video interviewing comes from saving time screening candidates and that’s what we focused our ROI model on. Let’s face it, in most cases you know within the first 5 minutes of a phone screen whether or not you want to move someone forward. But, the next 25+ minutes will be spent on the phone with this person no matter what. This seems small but can be substaintial!
As you'll see in the below video / spreadsheet, we can save a lot of time and therefore money by using video interview software. Of course, during COVID-19, video interviews can be a necessary tool to continue recruiting despite the challenges and dangers of meeting face to face.
It's worth noting again that while this tool can drive significant cost savings, it's important to keep the candidate experience in mind otherwise the time savings will result in negative Glassdoor comments about your interview process!
Pricing for video interview software can vary depending on the number of seats your company needs, the number of open roles, the number of interviews per month, and the various features/integrations you may need. With all that in mind, we wanted to share a general guide for you to understand what you may pay. If you're a small business looking to save some money, you might want to check out our best free video interviewing software landscape.
Like any piece of recruiting software, it’s important to pay attention to the unique mechanism that will price the software you are looking at, and how that will change the price you pay over time. For example, you may pay by seat, but have a few hiring managers that want seats in the future which will drastically increase your price. Or, you may pay by video interview (like many pre-employment screening companies do), which may be good/bad for your company depending on what percent of interviews convert to hires in your company relative to others.
When you’re looking at many different vendors for a given problem, it’s incredibly hard to remember which vendor had which feature. Taking notes is a great idea on any demo. But, we highly recommend going one step further to take notes in a very structured way that doesn’t require a perfect memory when it comes time for decision making on which video interview vendor to move forward with.
This organizer spreadsheet is designed to provide some sample questions you should think through when looking at video interviewing platforms. More importantly, it provides a foundation that you can modify to ensure you are collecting all of the right information to make the best possible choice for your business.
I remember when I first heard about video interviewing. I was working in venture capital, and stumbled upon the category in my search for the next big thing. I thought it was a great tool to save employers time. However, 10 years ago it was somewhat abnormal for a job seeker to be asked to do a video interview and I can remember friends complaining about it.
Fast forward to today, and many people have been through a video interview. It’s no longer foreign. Beyond interviewing, we are all a lot more comfortable with video through social media, as well as business which seems to get done more and more over video. This is especially true during COVID-19 where coming face to face with people can be dangerous.
The companies that struggle to get value out of video interviews are mostly failing because they don’t think about the candidate experience. They are sending job applicants links to do video interviews without the appropriate context for the overall process that will unfold for the video interview, as well as the broader hiring timeline.
Here’s a pro tip: use the features within these platforms that allow you to set the right expectations for interviewees, and generally humanize this process. You should record welcome videos for interviewees, give tips on how to make good videos, include messages from hiring managers, etc. Most vendors have great resources on how to do this right, and your account rep will also have good advice here!
One last point here is the use of AI in video interviewing. The rise of artificial intelligence will no doubt enable talent acquisition teams to do a lot more. Yet, given how nascent these systems are, it’s important to make sure you understand how any automated screening is happening, and double check the software’s logic with a human. This will allow your team to hire the best people, and stay away from any compliance issues.
Video interview software is a solution for companies to remotely conduct job interviews with potential candidates.
There are two types of video interviewing software, live video interviewing and asynchronous video interviewing, also called pre-recorded video interviews.
Each type of video interview software works differently. Live video interview platforms act like regular interviewing, but over a video conferencing platform where a candidate and a hiring manager speak in real-time. Asynchronous video interview platforms allow a candidate to answer pre-defined interview questions on their own time that are later reviewed by a recruiter.
You should use video interviewing software because it has many benefits, including:
Asynchronous video interviewing is very valuable to both the candidate and the hiring team. It saves time from playing phone tag for screening. It reduces hiring bias by standardizing the process. It allows candidates to interview on their own time. Candidates also can rerecord their video responses, leading to less stress to get everything right the first time. The hiring team can better evaluate candidates because they can rewatch answers whenever they want. Overall, there is much more functionality for hiring teams and ease-of-use for candidates.
Video interviewing can be a very powerful part of your HRTech stack. This is especially true for high volume roles where you’re spending a tremendous amount of time doing phone screens. While on demand interviewing can drive ROI from decreased time spent on phone screens, it can also increase your hiring outcomes by allowing you to better understand who a candidate is before making a decision on whether or not to hire them.
However, it’s worth noting that you should have a well defined strategy around how you will introduce the concept of video interviews to your candidates, and set expectations for their experience as well as how this content will be used. Companies who simply send candidates a link to take a video interview are not going to be successful.
That’s it! Are we missing something on this page? Let us know and we’ll research it for you! Better yet, join our expert council and lend your expertise! We rely heavily on the thoughts on forward thinking People professionals to help us put together useful and unbiased research.
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