Quick Start Guide for the Interview Portal
Overview
After reviewing applications in the Program and Review Portals, you'll determine who you want to invite for interviews and then use the Interview Portal to manage the interview process. Generally, the steps involved include:
- Preparing for interviews:
- Configuring Interview Portal settings and users.
- Adding selected applicants in the Interview Portal.
- Creating an interview session (i.e., an interview period, such as a full day, afternoon, etc.). This includes determining the number of applicants to be interviewed during the session, the number of interviewers, the number of rounds of interviews, etc.
- Notifying applicants they are invited to interview and allowing them to select their preferred sessions (alternatively, you can manually assign applicants to sessions).
- Creating a final interview schedule.
- Setting up scoring questions.
- Executing interviews:
- Performing interviews.
- Reviewing finals scores and rankings.
Note: when preparing for interviews, you may choose to perform steps in a different order than outlined above. The portal is flexible and allows for this; however, for the purposes of this guide, we'll use the order described above.
Preparing for Interviews
Step 1: Configure Settings and Add Interviewers
Before working in the Interview Portal, you may want to do two things in the Program Portal:
- Configure key Interview Portal settings, including:
- Which phases are used to add applicants to the Interview Portal. Applicants are added in the Interview Portal via specifically configured interview phases.
- How you want application PDFs to look in the Interview Portal. When you add an applicant to the Interview Portal, two different PDFs of their application are also added to the Interview Portal – one provides a full view of the application, while the other provides a limited view.
- Note: you can choose to use the default settings or make customizations, as needed. If making customizations, you can do this before or after you add applicants in the Interview Portal.
- Add interviewers to the Interview Portal.
- You can add interviewers before or after you add applicants to the Interview Portal.
Step 2: Add Applicants to the Interview Portal
Once you're ready to add applicants to the Interview Portal, you place them in an interview-related phase in the Program Portal; then, the system gets to work adding them to the Interview Portal, along with the full and limited PDFs of their application.
Important: the phase change only adds applicants to the Interview Portal – it does not send any notifications. You'll use a separate process to notify applicants that they are invited to interview.
Step 3: Access 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:
Once you're in the Interview Portal, you'll use the left menu to navigate through the different sections:
- Sessions: a session is a block of time in which interviews occur (i.e., a full day of interviews, a half day of interviews, etc.). In this section, you configure everything related to your interview days, then perform those interviews.
- Applicants: here you can see all applicants you added via the Program Portal.
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- Meeting Rooms: you can create virtual meeting rooms with applicants or interviewers outside of the interview. For example, you may want to meet with applicants the day before their interview for a virtual orientation about how it will work. Or, you may want to make a room to discuss applicants and scoring with interviewers after the day concludes.
- Staff: here you'll see a list of your Interview Portal users (who you add via the Program Portal).
Step 4: Create an Interview Session
A session is a period of time in which you conduct interviews (i.e., a full day, half day, etc.). When you create a session, you add key information, including the number of applicants you want to interview during the session, the number of rounds of interviews, etc. Later in the process, this information will be used to create a schedule. This schedule will organize the times and pairings of applicants with their interviewers.
Step 5: Invite and Assign Applicants to Your Sessions
Once your session is configured, you can begin inviting applicants.
Step 6: Create the Interview Schedule
After you add applicants to the session, you can create a schedule. The schedule is generated based on the information you entered when you first created the session, including the number of applicants, rooms, rounds, interview time, and review time. Once the schedule is populated, you can adjust it as needed.
Executing Interviews
Throughout May, we're focusing on interview preparation tasks. In June, we'll dsicuss how to conduct and manage interviews on interview day. Check back soon for more information!