Conducting Interviews and Scoring Applicants

Accessing the Interview Portal

From the Program Portal and the Review Portal, users who have access to the Interview Portal can navigate to it via the portal switcher.

Within the Interview Portal, program directors and managers can use the role switcher to become interviewers as needed.

Interviewer's View

The Interview Portal provides interviewers with all the functionality needed to perform interviews and score applicants. In the Interview Portal, interviewers can: 

• Use the All Programs drop-down to switch between programs.
• Join any meeting rooms created by program directors and managers (for example, a program might create a morning welcome session for applicants or an end-of-day session for all interviewers to review results). 
• Review the interview schedule. 
• Access application PDFs. 
• Use the Join Session button to enter the interview room.
  • If there are specific instructions for the interviewer, an information icon appears next to this button.
  • If you're using Interview Process Setup Option 2 (described above), the Join Session button opens that platform.  
• Enter interview scores and notes (scores and notes can be added during an interview or after).
• Manage interview statuses. 

Applicant's View

Applicants have a similar view to interviewers. If you're using Interview Process Setup Option 2 (described above), the Join button opens that platform.  

Note: you can log in to the Interview Portal sandbox environment as a test applicant and explore. Navigate to https://interviews.uat.residencycas.com/login and use any test applicant's email address and the password residencysanantonio. 

Managing Interview Statuses

A key aspect of the Interview Portal is the use of statuses to manage the flow of interviews. As interviewers progress through each interview, they update a series of statuses that can be viewed in real-time by the individual monitoring interview day. Interviewers can change statuses from their dashboard or from within the room. 

Status Change from Dashboard: 

Status Change from Interview Room: 

The statuses work as follows: 

• On Time: the interview time slot is in queue. 
• Ready: the interviewer is ready to start the interview. When the interviewer selects this status, a Join button appears for the applicant to enter the interview room.
  • Note that if the interviewer has not yet changed the status to Ready but the applicant is ready to join the interview, the applicant can see and select a Checked-in status, indicating they are ready and waiting.   
• In Progress: the interviewer and applicant have both joined the interview, and the timer has started. As the timer counts down, a two-minute warning is provided.  Note that if the interviewer changes the status to Ready and enters the room before the applicant, the status automatically changes to In Progress once the applicant joins the room.
• Completed: the interview is finished. Ideally, the interviewer has completed the scoring form. 

Conducting an Interview and Scoring an Applicant

Once the interviewer and applicant join the interview and it becomes In Progress, the interviewer sees the applicant and their PDF as the primary focus (note that some browsers may include additional tools to help you navigate the PDF). Additionally:

• A countdown of remaining time displays to the right of the Live Meeting view. An audible sound plays when there are 2 minutes remaining and again when the timer reaches 0.
  • Note: if using Safari, ensure the "Auto-Play" option is enabled in your browser settings to hear these notifications. For the best experience, we recommend using Chrome as the preferred browser.
• If instructions were added to the session, a drop-down button appears next to the Application to access them.
• The video control panel includes tools like screen sharing and virtual backgrounds.
  • Note: virtual backgrounds aren’t available in Safari due to MacOS limitations. To use this feature, switch to Google Chrome.

Throughout the interview day, interviewers can stay in the interview room and move between past and upcoming interviews via the previous and next icons (i.e., < and >) in the top menu bar. Additionally, they can use the icons in the top-right to: 

• Add notes (if desired, click the pop-out icon to move the panel to a smaller window that allows you to continue working in other areas of the software).
  
  
   
• Enter scores (if desired, click the pop-out icon to move the panel to a smaller window that allows you to continue working in other areas of the software).
  
  
   
• Chat with the individual monitoring interview day.  
  
  
   
• View the interview schedule.
  
  

Interview Access Safety Measures

Note that as a safety precaution to ensure applicants don't enter an interview prematurely, applicants cannot join an interview until the interviewer changes the status to Ready. Once the interviewer changes the status to Completed, the Join button disappears for the applicant, preventing them from rejoining the interview.

Additionally, if needed, interviewers can force applicants out of the interview room:

1. To the right of the room controls, open the menu on the applicant thumbnail and select Kick out. 
   
   
2. The interviewer is asked to confirm the applicant should be removed. 
3. Once confirmed, the applicant is notified they have been removed from the meeting and is redirected to their dashboard.
4. Change the interview status to Completed to prevent the applicant from rejoining (if status is set to Ready or In Progress, the applicant can rejoin). 

Accessing the Interview Portal

From the Program Portal and the Review Portal, users who have access to the Interview Portal can navigate to it via the portal switcher.

Within the Interview Portal, program directors and managers can use the role switcher to become interviewers as needed.

Scoring Applicants

When an interviewer navigates to the session date, they see a list of applicants scheduled for interviews during that session (the schedule itself is handled outside of the Interview Portal). 

For each applicant, the interviewer can: 

• Access the application PDF.
• Enter scores.
  
  
   
• Add notes.
  
  

Applicant's View

Since interviews are conducted outside of the portal, applicants can only see the session information.