There is a particular moment in recruiting that happens more often than hiring teams realise.

A strong candidate opens a job application in the evening. They are interested. They have relevant experience. Their CV is up to date enough. They might even have spoken to someone in their network about the company.

Then they reach the final step:

“Please upload a cover letter explaining why you would like to work with us.”

Or even more time consuming:

“Please record a short video answering the following questions.”

They close the tab.

Not because they cannot do the job. Not because they are lazy. Not because they lack communication skills, motivation, or the ability to write a nice message.

They close it because they are already employed, already busy, and because applying for a role is not currently their full-time hobby.

That candidate may be leading a team, shipping a product release, dealing with customers, raising children, commuting across different countries, or simply trying to have one evening without composing a two-page love letter to a company they have not yet had the chance to speak to.

The same applies to video applications. Turning a living room into a low-budget casting studio, finding decent lighting, recording multiple takes and wondering whether sounding “natural” now requires a script is simply not how many excellent people want to spend their evening.

And just like that, you have lost them.

The market may have cooled down. Great candidates have not become less busy.

The labour market across Germany and Europe is more complex in 2026 than the simple “candidate market versus employer market” headlines suggest.

Some companies are hiring more cautiously. Budgets are under scrutiny. Processes are longer. There are more applicants for certain generalist roles than there were two years ago.

But that does not mean the people you really want are suddenly sitting around, waiting to record a three-minute video about why they are passionate about your mission, nor writing a novel.

Specialist talent is still difficult to attract. Experienced engineers, strong commercial leaders, product people, skilled workers, people with industry knowledge, people who can actually lead through ambiguity rather than just write “resilient” on LinkedIn: these candidates are usually working.

They may be open to hearing about the right opportunity. They may take a recruiter call during lunch. They may read a well written message on the train. They may even spend a Sunday evening reviewing a role properly.

What they often will not do is rearrange their life to perform for a camera before anyone from the company has invested ten minutes in a real conversation.

That is the part many hiring processes get wrong: a mandatory video, is presented as a small ask because it takes “only five minutes.”

Five minutes to whom?

It is not five minutes. It is finding a quiet space. Checking the lighting. Recording an answer. Re-recording it because you suddenly sound like a person reading their own LinkedIn profile aloud. Wondering whether the company will judge the bookshelf in the background. Wondering who will watch it. Wondering whether software will analyse it. Wondering whether it will disappear into a folder nobody ever opens.

For a person actively job hunting, that may still feel manageable.

For the candidate you are hoping to tempt away from a demanding job, it is often the exact point where interest becomes friction.

Video applications solve an employer problem. They do not always solve a hiring problem.

Let us be fair: there are legitimate reasons companies use asynchronous video interviews.

They can create a more structured early-stage process. Everyone answers the same questions. Recruiters can review responses at different times. International teams avoid calendar gymnastics across time zones. For high-volume hiring, they can reduce scheduling work and create consistency. And most importantly, I’d say: you can make sure the answer is at least not entirely delivered by an AI tool.

There are also candidates who like them. Some appreciate the flexibility to respond outside traditional working hours. Some prefer recording an answer at their own pace over taking a live call during the middle of a workday. When designed carefully, with a clear explanation, reasonable deadlines and the option to re-record, the experience can be less frustrating than many recruiters assume.

But the important detail is: At what stage do you ask for it?

Too many companies use video applications as a substitute for recruiter capacity. The logic becomes: “We have too many applications, so let’s make candidates do more work before we speak to them.” That might reduce the number of applications. It may even reduce the number of people your team needs to screen.

But it can also reduce the number of excellent people who ever make it into your funnel.

Those are not the same thing.

A good hiring process should not only filter out unsuitable applicants. It should make the right people more likely to continue. Mandatory video applications often do the opposite.

You are measuring willingness to perform, not necessarily ability to do the job

A one-way video is a very specific type of task.

It measures how comfortable someone is speaking alone into a webcam, with limited feedback, usually under time pressure and often with no sense of who is on the other side.

That may be relevant for a creator role, a presenter role, some sales roles or a job where communication on camera is genuinely part of the work.

For many roles, however, it is not a meaningful proxy for performance.

A brilliant backend engineer may be thoughtful, calm and highly effective in a live problem-solving conversation. A senior operations leader may be excellent at bringing order to chaos, but hate talking to a blank screen. A candidate working in a second or third language may communicate brilliantly with colleagues and clients, yet feel less polished in a pre-recorded setting.

The risk is obvious: you end up rewarding the people who are best at the application format rather than the people who are best at the job.

And in a labour market where people are increasingly selective about where they invest their time, the candidates who are confident enough to walk away are often not the ones you can afford to lose.

A hiring process should feel like a conversation, not an audition

Recruitment is not an exam. It is a conversation about whether a person and a company could build something useful together.

Candidates are assessing you from the first interaction. They are noticing whether the process feels respectful, whether the company seems to understand the role, and whether anyone values their time. So when the first thing you ask them to do is record themselves alone in front of a camera, before anyone from the company has even spoken to them, it can send a message you probably did not intend: “Prove you are worth our time before we spend any on you.”

That is especially hard to justify when the video is only one part of a long application process: upload the CV, enter the CV again manually, connect LinkedIn, answer screening questions, record a video, complete a task — and then wait two weeks for an automated rejection. At some point, you are no longer testing motivation. You are testing how much free time and patience someone has.

And the candidates with the most relevant experience are often the ones with the least of both.

The trust issue is even bigger now because people do not know what happens to their video once they submit it. Will a recruiter watch it? Will it be assessed by software? Is AI involved? Is somebody analysing their language, their tone, their face or how “confident” they appear? Not every company uses video in this way, of course. But candidates should not have to dig through a privacy policy to understand whether they are talking to a person or performing for an algorithm.

This does not mean video is always a bad idea. For roles where presenting, selling, hosting or communicating on camera is genuinely part of the job, it can be useful. But it works much better later in the process, once both sides have spoken and there is actual interest. Then it feels relevant. At the start, it often just feels like a hurdle.

For most professional roles, a CV, LinkedIn profile, portfolio or referral should be enough to earn a short first conversation. Fifteen minutes with a recruiter who has actually read someone’s background will usually tell you more than a polished two-minute video ever could.

And if you do use video, be clear about why. Explain who will review it, whether AI is involved, how long it will be stored and what alternatives are available. “Optional” only counts when people can genuinely choose not to do it without being quietly penalised.

Yes, a video step may save your team time. But efficiency is only useful if you are not filtering out the people you actually want to hire.

The best candidates are not asking for a red carpet. They are asking for a reason to care.

They will make time for a serious opportunity. They will prepare for a good conversation. They will complete a relevant task when it makes sense.

But many of them will not turn their kitchen into a mini film studio just to earn the right to speak to someone.

Use video to support a conversation, not to replace one.