Video Interviewing: How It Started and Where It's Going

TL;DR

• Video interviewing is now mainstream: six in 10 companies use it in core hiring.
• The category began around 2010: HireVue and Montage built pre-recorded interviews; VidCruiter launched in 2009.
• Mobile and AI define the next phase: AI scoring, one-way interviews, and video job posts.
• Video complements in-person interviews: it dominates early screening; final rounds stay in person.
• AI works best across the full hiring funnel: score every stage, not just the interview.

Video interviewing is no longer a novelty. Six in 10 companies now use it as a core part of hiring, and the technology continues to expand into AI scoring, mobile-first applications, and full recruitment automation.

The path to that point was not obvious. Fifteen years ago, the founders of the first video interviewing software platforms were shipping webcams to candidates from their dorm rooms because the hardware did not yet exist in most homes.

This guide tells the full story: where video interviewing came from, where it is today, and where it is going next.

Where Did Video Interviewing Start?

Video interviewing was conceptualized over 15 years ago. Today it is reshaping the HR industry.

After the turn of the century, two companies began testing the market: HireVue and Montage. Both became successful, and both faced the same obstacle.

"In both cases, there was a problem that no one had webcams," said VidCruiter CEO and founder Sean Fahey. HireVue founder Mark Newman personally shipped webcams to applicants from his university dorm room in 2010.

That early effort created the category. HireVue and Montage invented pre-recorded video interview software, where candidates record at home while hiring managers review responses on their own schedule.

Other players quickly entered the space. GreenJobInterview built a live video interview product. InterviewStream partnered with universities and career counselors to help job seekers practice their interviewing skills.

How did VidCruiter get started?

When Sean Fahey started VidCruiter in 2009, he was new to the market but encouraged by the early traction these other businesses were finding.

"When we started the company in 2009 with two part-time staffers, HireVue already had $600,000 in revenue. They were way bigger than we were, we weren't even close."

The idea for VidCruiter came from a hiring problem. A client asked Fahey if he could hire 200 people quickly on a five-year plan. Fahey countered: "What if we did it in 30 days?"

His first solution was for a recruiter to record video questions and have applicants type back responses. That worked, and the idea to upgrade typed responses to video responses followed soon after. That became the foundation of VidCruiter's business and the format much of the industry now uses.

What Does the Video Interviewing Market Look Like Today?

The HR Tech market has grown substantially since the early 2000s, with some consolidation among the original players. The bigger shift is in who is buying.

"There's probably 125,000 companies that could buy. There's still a global demand for this product. It's just about being found and educating the market," Fahey said.

Customer education remains one of the biggest challenges. Many companies still do not understand the difference between paid recruitment platforms and free video conferencing tools.

"People assume these products are like Zoom. Why would I pay for something like Zoom or Webex or GoToMeeting? They don't realize there's a pre-recorded component where people record at home. That's where the time savings come in."

A clearer comparison, Fahey notes, is YouTube. With YouTube, you watch a video someone recorded at a different time. Now imagine each of those videos is an interview response, and you need to evaluate whether the person has the skills for the job.

A modern recruitment platform is far more secure and feature-rich than YouTube, but the analogy helps explain the time savings to anyone unfamiliar with the format.

What is the Future of Video Interviewing?

Video interviewing is here to stay. Talogy's Alissa Parr asked HR leaders what they expected to see more of in future interviews:

The trend is clear. Convenience, scale, and remote-friendliness all favor video. Recruiters spend less time coordinating schedules or sitting through unqualified screens, and candidates can interview without taking a day off work.

The bigger shift is what is being built on top of video.

Where is video interviewing going next?

There is still significant room to improve the system around video. Industrial-organizational psychology research consistently ranks structured interviews among the strongest predictors of job performance. That predictive validity extends beyond the interview itself: a structured interview is most powerful when every stage of the hiring process, not just the interview, can be scored end to end.

"If you have something analyzing everything at every step, the interview stage, skills testing, how references answer, the first in-person interview, the second in-person interview, all those components from start to finish, and you automate the whole system, that really is a gamechanger in HR."

In Fahey's view, AI's biggest impact comes when it is built into the entire recruiting funnel, not bolted onto video alone. That is where VidCruiter is investing.

"The market isn't ready to buy all of that yet, but that's where VidCruiter is going. The future of video interviewing isn't just adding AI. It's making AI part of the overall recruitment cycle."

Will Video Interviews Replace In-Person Interviews?

No. Video interviews will continue to dominate early-stage screening and remote roles, but in-person interviews keep their place for final-round candidates and roles that depend heavily on interpersonal chemistry. Video complements in-person interviews more than it replaces them.

Tools like a structured interview platform can bridge the two formats, giving every interviewer a consistent evaluation framework whether the conversation happens on screen or in a conference room. That consistency is also one of the strongest contributors to a positive candidate experience.