Setting up video interviews

Build question templates, attach them to a Video interview stage and manage invitations, reminders and resends for HireFlix video interviews.

Video interviews in Recruit are one-way recorded interviews run through HireFlix. You write the questions once as a template, attach the template to a Video interview stage in a job's pipeline, and Recruit invites each candidate who reaches that stage. This article covers the whole setup, from the first template to resending an invitation that never arrived. Watching and scoring the recordings is covered in a separate article.

Who can do what

Before you start

There is nothing to connect. HireFlix is run by HireRoad on behalf of every organisation, so you will not find it under Settings > Integrations, and there are no credentials to enter. Video interviewing is ready to use as soon as you create a template.

You do need three other things in place. The candidate must have an email address, because that is where the invitation goes. You need email templates in the Video Interview Invitation, Video Interview Reminder and Video Interview Completion categories (created under Settings > Templates). And the job needs a stage with the type Video interview.

Step 1: Create a question template

1. Go to Settings > Feedback Forms and open the Video Interview Questions tab.
2. Select Create Template (or + Add Form if you already have templates), enter a name in Template Name and select Create Template again.
3. Under Interview Settings, set the values that apply to every question in the interview:
   • Thinking Time (seconds): how long the candidate gets to prepare before recording. Defaults to 30.
   • Max Answer Time (seconds): the longest a single answer can run. Defaults to 120. The minimum is 60, and a lower value shows an error and blocks saving.
   • Max Retakes: how many times a candidate can re-record an answer. Defaults to 2.
4. Optionally upload an Intro Video, which candidates see before the questions begin.
5. Under Questions, fill in a Title (a short label such as Motivation) and the Question itself, up to 1,200 characters. Turn Required on or off, and optionally add a question video as a recorded prompt. Every question needs a title.
6. Select + Add Question for more. An interview can have up to 5 questions. Drag the handle on a row to reorder them, or use the bin icon to remove one.
7. Optionally add a Farewell Video and a Farewell Message, shown after the last answer.
8. Select Save.

Every video you upload (intro, question or farewell) must be MP4 or WebM, no larger than 50 MB and no longer than 2 minutes. Files that break those limits are rejected at upload with a message saying which limit was exceeded.

Use the copy icon beside a template to duplicate it, and the bin icon to delete it. Deleting cannot be undone.

If you edit a template that live jobs are already using, Recruit warns you with Update live positions? and shows how many are affected. Select Continue to save. The new questions apply to candidates invited from then on. Candidates who have already been invited are not affected.

Step 2: Set the candidate notifications

Below the template you will find the Candidate Notifications card. It controls the messages Recruit sends around the interview. Changes on this card save as you make them, and there is no Save button.

A new template starts with three email rows: an Invitation sent When invited, a Reminder sent No response after 24h, and a Completion message sent On completion. None of them has an email template chosen, and a row without one is never sent. Choose a template in Email template on each row you want to use. The list offers templates from the matching category, based on the When value. If you need a template that does not exist yet, select Edit templates to go to Settings > Templates.

Each row has four selectors: Channel (Email or SMS), Language, Type (Invitation, Reminder or Completion) and When (When invited, No response after 24h, 48h or 72h, On completion). Select + Add message to add a row, then change its selectors. Each combination of channel, type, when and language can appear once on a template, so a duplicate is refused. SMS is a paid add-on and needs a phone number on the candidate.

The invitation template must include the video interview link, or the candidate has no way to open the interview. Invitation and reminder templates can use the candidate's name, the job title, your organisation name and the video interview link. Completion templates can use everything except the link.

Step 3: Attach the template to a stage

1. In the job's pipeline, add a stage and set its type to Video interview. You can do this in the job setup wizard on the pipeline step, on the job's Settings tab, or in your default pipeline under Settings > Pipeline Templates.
2. In the Video Interview Template (optional) field on that stage, choose your template.
3. Save the stage or job as you normally would.

Recruit creates the interview on HireFlix when the job is first published, when a closed job is reopened, or straight away if you attach a template to a job that is already open. The job page shows Video interview setup in progress while this runs, then Video interview ready with the stage name. Setup runs in the background. If you change the template on a live stage, the questions on the live interview are updated. If you remove the template, change the stage type or delete the stage, the interview is retired.

A stage with no template never gets set up. Candidates who arrive there wait and are not invited.

What happens when a candidate enters the stage

Moving a candidate into the Video interview stage triggers the invitation. It works the same for a single move and a bulk move, and there is no manual invite button. Recruit sends the invitation to HireFlix, then sends the invitation email from your template, with the candidate's personal interview link. The candidate's card in the pipeline shows an Awaiting response badge, which changes to Video completed once they have recorded their answers.

The candidate's activity timeline records what happened: the invitation sent to their email address, a failure with the reason, or Candidate has no email on file if there was nothing to send to. If the stage was still being set up when the candidate arrived, they are invited automatically as soon as setup finishes. A candidate who is moved into the stage again after a successful invitation is not invited a second time. A candidate moved into the stage as part of an agency submission is not sent an invitation.

If the timeline says HireFlix is not configured for your organisation, contact HireRoad support.

Finishing the interview does not move the candidate on. They stay in the Video interview stage until someone reviews the responses and decides.

Reminders

Recruit can send up to three reminders, at 24, 48 and 72 hours after the invitation. A reminder goes out only if the template has a Reminder row with the matching When value and an email template chosen. Add the 48 and 72 hour rows yourself with + Add message.

Reminders stop when the candidate completes the interview, moves to another stage, is rejected or withdraws, or the job is paused or closed. If a job is paused and then published again, Recruit sends one catch-up reminder for the most recent one that was missed, not all of them.

What the candidate sees

The candidate opens the link in the email and records their answers in the browser. They see your intro video if there is one, then each question with its title, text and prompt video, followed by the thinking time, the recording and any retakes you allowed. At the end they see your farewell video and message. The interview carries your organisation's logo and brand colour, and shows the name as your organisation name followed by "via Recruit".

When an interview stops being available

There is no expiry date to set on an invitation. A candidate's link stops working when the interview is retired, which happens when:

• the job is closed or archived, the template is removed from the stage, or the stage is changed or deleted
• a closed job is reopened, because Recruit creates a fresh interview and the old links stop. Use Request a new interview for candidates who still need to record.

Recruit waits for candidates who have been invited but have not finished. In that case the job page shows Waiting for invited candidates to finish before retiring the video setup, and the interview is retired once the last candidate completes. System Admin and HR can select Retire now to retire it straight away, which ends access for anyone who has not finished. Pausing a job does not retire anything.

Fixing invitations that were not delivered

An invitation can reach HireFlix while the email to the candidate never arrives. Go to Settings > Video Interview Invitations (System Admin only). The page lists invitations from the last 30 days that were sent to HireFlix, belong to a stage whose template has an enabled invitation email, and have no confirmation that the email was delivered. Each row shows the Candidate, Job, Stage and when it was Sent. The page shows 20 rows at a time.

1. Select Retry notifications on the row.
2. Read the message that appears, for example that 1 of 1 notifications were sent.

The retry sends the email again with the link to the candidate's existing interview. It does not create a new interview. If the result shows a failure, check that the invitation row on the template has an email template chosen. You may also see one of these instead:

• the email has already been delivered or is on its way, so there is nothing to retry
• the email is still being retried automatically, so try again later
• the invitation is no longer waiting on notifications
• notifications cannot be retried because, for example, the job is paused or the candidate has moved on

If every notification channel is switched off for the stage, the retry sends nothing and says so. The page shows No stranded invitations. when there is nothing to fix.

Requesting a new interview

If a candidate needs to record again, open their profile while their application is in the Video interview stage and select Request a new interview. Confirm with Send new invitation. The candidate receives a new invitation and link using the stage's current questions. The earlier attempt, with its recording and feedback, is kept, and the new one appears as the next attempt.

The button appears only when the stage has been set up. If it fails you will see one of three messages: the candidate has no email address, a new interview is already being sent for this candidate, or the provider did not accept the invitation and you should try again later.

When setup fails on a job

If a stage cannot be set up, the job page shows Video interview setup needs attention and candidates cannot be invited until it is fixed. Each affected stage gives its reason:

• a video in the template is over 50 MB, or is in a format that is not accepted: replace it and retry
• the template is no longer available to the job: choose another template for the stage
• the provider could not be reached: retry
• the interview was retired, or was never set up: retry

System Admin and HR see a Retry setup button on each stage while the job is open. Candidates who were waiting are invited once setup succeeds.