HireVue Interview Guide

What is HireVue?

HireVue is a digital recruiting company dedicated to finding the best talent for their clients using video intelligence for interviews. Their clients are talent acquisition or recruitment teams from top investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Morgan Stanley. Banks and accounting firms (such as Deloitte) often rely on a HireVue interview to discover the right candidate at a faster rate without sacrificing the quality the banks are looking for.

Here is a link to HireVue’s website -> https://www.hirevue.com

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How does HireVue interview technology work?

Artificial intelligence is performed on the recorded videos, providing insights into candidates that help Bulge Bracket banks make better hiring decisions. This technology is developed in conjunction with some of the leading industrial-organizational (IO) psychologists, working to better the hiring practices of various firms.

In other words, the company uses proprietary machine learning algorithms that analyze data points found in the video interview to predict future job performance of the candidate. This helps companies identify who will be the top performers that can meet the company’s business objectives

HireVue interviews are video-based and allow a company’s recruiter to see non-verbal cues – such as facial expressions, eye-movements, body movements, details of clothes, and nuances of voice. As mentioned earlier, these same nonverbal cues are collected as data points and processed by HireVue technology to perform meaningful assessments.

To get started on the interviews, banks will provide pre-set questions for the candidate to answer in front of a camera. Candidates are only given one chance to record their answers, so it’s recommended that they anticipate and practice any questions beforehand.

Banks will replace the first round, face-to-face interviews and, instead, will interview students and recent graduates remotely through video recording.

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Why would banks use HireVue for interviews?

Banks use the HireVue interview process to improve their own overall hiring process, as more candidates can be reviewed in less time while keeping the best talent for further assessment.

A strong and targeted resume will prompt a HireVue invitation. However, companies want to know more about the candidate than merely what’s written on their resume and cover letter, which can look and sound rather the same for most applicants. Further differentiation is needed, so interview questions relating to behavioral and fit issues are asked during the initial video interview to generate unique and individualized responses.

Once the interviews are completed, HireVue provides an approach to screening that allows for a side-by-side evaluation of responses to the same questions and for a greater overall comparison of candidates. In contrast, relying on just the resume can produce unconscious or intended bias such as affinity bias, gender bias, school bias, or racial bias, to name a few. Also, considering only the resume can minimize the chances of having a diverse talent group.

To learn more, see our various interview guides.

Benefits to Candidates of a HireVue interview

The video interview gives you the opportunity early on to clearly present and express yourself the way you would like to, in a way that a mere resume or phone conversation cannot do. With a video interview, the recruiter can better see the personality, drive, and work ethic of a candidate. Furthermore, this attracts and captures more candidates from more schools because the talent isn’t just found from target schools such as those belonging to the Ivy League group… world-class talent can be found anywhere!

The flexibility offers candidates the ability to do the interview anytime and anywhere. They will be given some time to prepare, usually within two days of receiving an email invitation, and the interview can take place outside of office hours.

Candidates can express their potential in person, aside from showing their written experiences. HireVue gives the candidates the opportunity to tell their personalized story and show that they can offer so much more than what’s stated on their resume.

To learn more, see our various interview guides.

What to expect during an Investment Banking HireVue Interview?

Having a HireVue interview will be a new experience for many applicants because top banks like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan have only recently begun to use HireVue.

The first interview is provided by HireVue. It does not completely replace the more traditional, intensive recruiting process. If the first interview is successful, then a representative from the bank will contact the candidate for a second interview. From then on, any upcoming interviews will be part of the regular interview rounds, involving live interactions with analysts, associates, and even VPs and MDs.

You will be given about 20-30 seconds for each question to think of a response. After that, you’ll have up to three minutes to record your answer. The amount of time given really depends on the questions. For instance, a question about why you would be the best candidate for the role will require a longer and more thoughtful response than answering a question about what your overall GPA is.

See our investment banking interview questions and answers.

How to prepare for the HireVue interview?

Once you access HireVue’s online portal, you will be given a chance to practice with some sample questions. You’ll be able to record yourself and watch how you give your responses so that you can look more polished, prepared, and professional once you actually do the real interview.

To do well for the HireVue Interview, you need to go over some standard questions that are commonly asked in behavioral or fit interviews.

Here’s a list that can help you get you started:

1. Why are you applying for this position?
2. How did you deal with a difficult co-worker in your previous work experiences?
3. How did you handle a drastic change in role to achieve a goal?
4. Why do you think you are the right candidate for this position?
5. What current events are you following at the moment? Why are they interesting?
6. Do you have an expertise or unique experience that can benefit our team?
7. What is the most important leadership experience you have? And why?
8. What efforts do you make to keep abreast of financial markets and business news?
9. Why do you want to work for our company?
10. What relevant skills have you gained from your past work or internship that are easily transferable and directly beneficial to the new role you’re applying for?
11. Why are you looking for a new role in our company?
12. What were your top responsibilities at your current/previous position?
13. What are your three main weaknesses?
14. How will you use your background and skills to succeed in this role?

To learn more, see our guide to interview questions and answers.

Important things to remember when using HireVue

Here are the top four tips for doing a HireVue interview:

1. Maintain eye contact in front of the camera as if you’re speaking face-to-face with a person.
2. Make sure to enunciate your words and try not to stutter or have long pauses. You always want to be in the position of being ready to answer what’s being asked.
3. Don’t forget to keep it natural. Sounding too rehearsed can make you sound like a robot and boring.  Showing your personality can go a long way, just like when you do live interviews or phone calls.
4. For banking interviews, you have to dress appropriately. Wear professional clothing such as your typical suit and tie for investment banking interviews.

More interview resources

We hope this has been a helpful HireVue interview guide. Being well prepared for your interview takes a lot of practice.  Below are several interview guides to help you on your path to being hired.

Interview questions (and answers!):

• Investment Banking Interview Questions
• Equity Research Interview Questions
• FP&A Interview Questions
• Accounting Interview Questions
• See all career resources