Interview Portal Quick Start Guide
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:
- Conducting interviews.
- Managing the interview day.
- 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 Notes:
- The phase change only adds applicants to the Interview Portal; it does not send notifications. You'll use a separate process to notify applicants of their interview invitations.
- While the Program and Interview Portals are both part of the ResidencyCAS suite, they serve different purposes: the Program Portal is for reviewing applications, and the Interview Portal is for preparing for and conducting interviews.
- Phases in the Program Portal are different from those in the Interview Portal. Generally, once you finish reviewing applications in the Program Portal, you'll add applicants to the Interview Portal and continue the process from there.
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 or both before, during, or after interviews. For example, you might create a morning welcome session for applicants or an end-of-day session for all interviewers to review results.
- Staff: here you'll see a list of your Interview Portal users (who you add via the Program Portal).
Note that program directors and managers can use the role switcher to become interviewers as needed:
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 Applicants to Interview
Once your session is configured, you can either let applicants self-select the session or manually assign them to it.
Step 6: Create the Interview Schedule
Once all applicants are added to the session, you can generate the interview 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
Step 1: Get Familiar with the Interviewer and Applicant Views
Interviewers have all the functionality needed to perform interviews and score applicants, and a key aspect of interview day is managing the status of each interview. Applicants have a similar view to interviewers. Review the Conducting Interviews article for more insight.
Step 2: Use TimeTrack to Manage the Interview Day
There are lots of moving parts to an interview day. To help you manage the day and ensure interviews progress smoothly, you can use the TimeTrack feature.
Step 3: View and Adjust Scores and Ranks
Once interviewers enter their scores, you can view and adjust the final scores and rankings.
