I haven't even heard of such a thing. I've done a couple written Q&As, but those I think are fair, since I have time to prepare a thoughtful response and don't have to worry about communicating body language to a faceless camera at the same time.

To be honest, it sounds like a net lose -- it's a definite negative for a candidate, with perhaps not much benefit for the company (high noise, high false negatives due to the awkward environment).

My gut feeling is that I would immediately reject any company that asked me to do that, if I had the choice.

Well to be fair, they likely get many more applicants than you have interviews scheduled.

And it's just a pre-screen, right? It's not like you have to make your decision right there and then if you do well in it.

I don't disagree but it seems impersonal at best, rude at worst.

Even worse (for the hiring team) - it's probably not that effective a filter. You might as well use the "I only hire lucky people" filter [1].

Interviewing needs to be interactive because any decent job requires interaction.

[1] http://cream.hr/blog/why-the-hiring-system-is-failing/

I agree with you. If you can't be bothered asking me the questions in person, I can't be bothered answering them. That's the social contract.

I've already written a cover letter that responds to the points in the ad; if they can't prescreen sufficiently using that then they need to work on their ad.