5 Tips for Healthcare Recruitment Video Interviews
Healthcare Diversity Managers and HR professionals can prep job candidates for online interviews that speed recruitment
By EmployDiversity
The Coronavirus pandemic has created two major phenomena: most citizens remaining in their homes and most healthcare candidates remaining home, too. While many households in the United States have at least one computer, a sizable portion are owned by people who do not have professional experience with video interviews. Meanwhile, many professional healthcare administrators, especially in HR, also do not have experience conducting online interviews.
HR professionals, in particular, are in a great position to help and encourage diverse professionals who may be amazing healthcare workers, but who have little or no experience in front of a camera with a stranger who may determine their career.
Check out some of these tips that Diversity Managers in the healthcare sector can use to effectively interview candidates who are not movie stars, but who may be right for your organization.
Prepare the Candidate
As quickly as possible, you want to hire staff that will succeed. Help them out before you even meet them online.
You will most likely have communicated with candidates by email before the interview. In addition to setting up the interview time through correspondence. Depending on the level for which you are hiring, people may not have had any experience interviewing online.
If the interview is for cleaning or secretarial staff, expect they have very little exposure to video conferencing. If you are interviewing for nurses, they may have a bit more experience than janitors and admins. In any of these instances, it helps to include in your correspondences to candidates a note about video interview etiquette.
Interviewing online is different from talking with mom and dad through Skype. Make that clear to candidates ahead of time. You can provide them with several tips that will help job seekers immeasurably.
Blank Background
Let them know they should conduct their interview with, if possible, a blank or plain background. It is common knowledge people are interviewing from their homes, so they do not have to act like they are in an office.
Exclude Family
The candidate’s family should remain out of the frame of the video and should try to stay quiet, if possible. Of course, this is difficult if the job seeker either has a small child or a pet. It is more common than ever before for callers to hear dogs barking in the background. While not rude, it is a distraction that both parties sometimes find it difficult to recover from.
Set the Scene
Include in your forward tips to candidates that they should sit in a well-lit area. It’s best to be sitting toward warm, yellow lighting from above the screen. Lighting from below the screen can provide the candidate a ghoulish hue. You and the candidate should also do a sound and video check at least 15-minutes before a call, to make sure the technology is working properly.
Also, establish ahead of time whether the call sound will be echoey. If so, try to dampen the effect by changing rooms or shortening the distance between mouth and microphone.
And tell the candidate that they should dress neatly. Business casual is not a bad idea, if possible. A bit of makeup -- for men and women -- is fine.
Wait a Second
Video and audio feed take a moment to elapse. Help the candidate understand ahead of time that it is a good idea to wait for a second or two to respond to a question. Otherwise, they may speak over your response or vice versa.
Many candidates may speak English as a Second Language (ESL). Speak clearly and in a measured manner without shouting over the line. And wait for a second or two before saying anything to make sure they’ve responded in full to questions.
The time of the Coronavirus pandemic has certainly changed the way we interact. The flu has changed the healthcare sector in unexpected ways. In addition to forcing healthcare providers to ramp up the hiring of certain roles, HR must now work in a very different way than in the past. However, Diversity and hiring managers have an opportunity to help out candidates in support services in ways they may not have considered before.
Since 2003, EmployDiversity has been helping the healthcare sector find and recruit qualified professionals. Contact us at support@employdiversity.com to learn how we can help you.
