THE process of hiring new staff could be radically streamlined by a platform for interviewing candidates on video.

StemX is promoting its services under the slogan “See people, not paper”.

The Bournemouth-based start-up aims to put video interviewing technology into the hands of smaller employers as well as big business.

Co-founder Diggory Simons said: “A lot of our competitors go after multinational corporates. They’re not interested in people that don’t have a massive budget.”

StemX allows hirers to invite candidates for a video interview, which the candidates can answer do their own time via a website or app. The recruiters set the questions in advance and can review the interviews at their leisure.

Mr Simons believes recruiters can get a better measure of candidates by video interviews than by just reviewing their CVs.

“Our goal was to create more opportunities for younger people. A lot of our friends when we started this in August 2016 were coming out of university and looking for jobs or they had finished their apprenticeships and they just weren’t getting any feedback on why they didn’t get a job and what they could do better to get the jobs,” he said.

Mr Simons, of Bournemouth, and co-founder Dominic Chapman, of Highcliffe, are based in THIS Workspace in the Daily Echo building.

“We’re both 22 years old and we’ve worked tirelessly for the last two years to make this thing a reality and it’s finally coming into being,” said Mr Simons.

Prices start at £25 a month for interviewing up to 100 candidates for up to 10 roles. The other packages are £50 a month for 20 roles and 500 candidates, or £100 for unlimited use.

Dominic Chapman said: “One of our customers paid over £2,500 just to trial a competitor’s platform before switching to us.

“The whole reason that we started StemX was that I felt that there was a different way for people to experience recruitment software. I don’t want to talk to a pushy salesman. I don’t want to spend thousands on a simple platform and I don’t want to be sold things that I don’t need.”

Mr Simons said the process would not replace interviewing in person. “It’s just there to filter. We still believe it’s really good to sit down face to face with someone and chat,” he added.