Video interview software for a small business that has no recruiter
Video interview software for a small business is a way to hear every applicant answer the same few questions without booking a call with each of them. The owner or manager writes the questions once, applicants record short answers from a link on their own phone, and the answers come back transcribed and scored against criteria the business set. VoxScreen does this on a permanent free plan covering 50 candidates a month, with no card and no charge for adding colleagues. It is one step of hiring, not an applicant tracking system, and for a business that hires twice a year it is more setup than the hire deserves.
Where screening breaks down
In a small business the person hiring is also the person doing something else. The owner, the office manager or the shop lead posts the job, and the applications arrive during the working day, in an inbox that was already full. Nobody's title says recruiting, so screening happens in the gaps: a call from the car, a call at seven in the evening, a call that gets moved twice.
The arithmetic is what breaks it. Forty applicants at twenty minutes a call is more than thirteen hours, before a single no-show. So most small businesses don't call forty people. They read résumés, pick six on instinct and call those, which means the decision about the other thirty-four was made by a document that says almost nothing about how someone speaks to a customer.
The tools built for this mostly assume a hiring department. They are priced per seat or per open role, sold on an annual contract, and trialled for a week or a month, which is rarely long enough for a business that had one opening and filled it. The trial runs out before the next role exists.
How a round runs
- Describe the role in a sentence or two. VoxScreen drafts the questions and the scoring criteria, and you edit both until they sound like you. Three or four questions is plenty for a first round.
- Put the interview link wherever applicants already are: in the job post, in your reply to an application, on a sign at the till. One link serves everyone, and nobody needs an account to answer.
- Applicants record on their own phone or laptop, in the evening or on a break. Any question can be set to voice only, for the candidates who would rather not be on camera.
- Read the ranked list when you have twenty minutes. Every answer has its transcript and a score per criterion beside it, so you can skim the text and watch only the answers that matter. Nobody is removed from the list by a score.
- Invite the three or four you want to meet, and bring in whoever will work beside them. Colleagues join free and see the same answers you did.
What it replaces
The first-round phone call
A first call mostly establishes whether someone can explain themselves clearly and whether they understood the job. Recorded answers establish the same thing, for every applicant instead of the six you had time for, and a transcript reads faster than anyone talks.
Choosing who to call from résumés alone
For a receptionist, a sales assistant or a support hire, the résumé is the weakest evidence you have. Hearing two minutes from everyone moves the guess to after the evidence instead of before it.
A hiring tool you pay for between hires
A subscription that runs through the eight months when you are not hiring is the usual reason small businesses cancel these tools. A free plan with no end date can simply sit there until the next opening.
What it costs at your volume
Plans differ in one thing: how many new candidates you add in a month. A candidate counts once, the first time their email address is added, and never again. Everything else is the same on every plan.
| Situation | New candidates a month | Plan | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| One opening every month or two, about 30 applicants | 30 | Free | $0/mo |
| Two openings in the same month, 60 applicants each | 120 | Starter | $39/mo |
| Opening a second location: eight roles, 50 applicants each | 400 | Starter | $39/mo |
The tools you're probably comparing
These are the tools a small business usually ends up comparing, on the four rows that decide it at this size: whether free means free, how long a trial lasts if it doesn't, what the first paid month costs, and whether bringing in a second reviewer changes the bill.
| Tool | Free plan, not a trial | Free trial, if there is no free plan | Entry price | Team members included |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VoxScreen Our product | Yes, 50 candidates a month | Not needed. The free plan has no end date | $39/mo | Unlimited, on every plan |
| Hireflix | No | 1 month | $75/mo | Unlimited |
| Truffle | No | 7 days / 30 credits, no card | $49/mo | Unlimited |
| Hirevire | No | 7 days, no card | $49/mo | 1 on Essentials |
| Spark Hire | No | Not stated on their site | $249/mo | 5 monthly, unlimited annual |
- Hireflix. Sources: hireflix.com/pricing , help.hireflix.com · VoxScreen vs Hireflix
- Truffle. Sources: hiretruffle.com/pricing · VoxScreen vs Truffle
- Hirevire. Sources: hirevire.com/pricing · VoxScreen vs Hirevire
- Spark Hire. Sources: sparkhire.com/pricing · VoxScreen vs Spark Hire
When this is the wrong tool
- You hire once or twice a year and get a dozen applicants. Call them. Writing questions and criteria takes longer than the calls would, and a conversation tells you more than a recording when the pool is that small.
- You want applicant tracking and video interviews from one vendor on one contract. VoxScreen stores no pipeline and posts to no job boards. Spark Hire sells both. VoxScreen vs Spark Hire
- Reading the résumés is the slow part, not the calls. Truffle screens résumés as well as interviews and prices the résumé screen as its cheapest action. VoxScreen doesn't read résumés at all. VoxScreen vs Truffle
- The role is judged on work you can look at: a portfolio, a writing sample, a trial shift. Ask for that instead. A recorded answer about the work is weaker evidence than the work.
Interview questions for these roles
Each guide gives the questions in full, with what a strong answer sounds like and a scorecard to rate against. No sign-up.
Customer-facing
Common questions
Is the free plan enough for a small business, or is it a trial?
It is a plan, and for most small businesses it is the whole product. It covers 50 candidates a month with no end date and no card, and it includes the AI scoring, the ranking, unlimited open roles and unlimited team members. The paid plans raise the monthly candidate allowance and change nothing else, so the only reason to upgrade is a month with more applicants than the free plan takes.
We have no HR person. How much setup is there?
One role takes a few minutes: you describe the job, edit the drafted questions and criteria, and copy the link. There is nothing to install and nothing to connect. The part worth spending time on is the criteria, because they decide what the scores mean. Two or three plain ones, such as explains things clearly or has dealt with an unhappy customer, work better than a long list.
Will applicants for hourly or entry-level jobs actually record answers?
Some won't, and it is better to know that going in. What helps is keeping it short, saying how long each answer can be before they start, and telling them when they will hear back. Candidates record in the browser on a phone, with no account and no app, and any question can be answered by voice instead of video. If a strong applicant would rather talk, call them. The recorded round is there to save you the other thirty calls, not to forbid one.
Does the AI decide who gets hired?
No. It scores each answer against the criteria you wrote and sorts the list, and that is all. No score removes anyone, every applicant stays visible, and each score sits next to the transcript it came from so you can check it. It scores what was said, read from the transcript. It does not assess faces, expressions or personality.
Can my business partner or shift manager review candidates too?
Yes, at no cost. Every plan has unlimited team members, the free one included. You invite them by email and they see the same candidates, transcripts and scores. This is the row where small teams are most often caught out elsewhere, because several tools in this category limit seats on their entry plan.
Do we need an applicant tracking system first?
No. VoxScreen runs on its own with a link and an inbox, which is how most small businesses use it. If you already keep applicants in another tool, the REST API and webhooks can pass invitations in and scores back, but nothing requires it.
What doesn't it do that a small business might expect?
It doesn't post jobs, track applicants through stages, schedule interviews, run background checks or send offers. It covers the step between a pile of applications and a short list of people worth meeting, and it leaves everything on either side of that to whatever you already use.
Try it on a real role
Set up an interview in five minutes, send one link, and read the ranked results. The free plan takes 50 candidates a month and needs no card.
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