Zoom for Virtual Interviews

So here are the lessons we learned...

• This is a two person job. Consider having one person chatting candidates in the waiting room; welcoming them; checking their audio/visual and orienting them to the interview schedule.  The second person can actually be moving applicants to their interviews or from one interview to the next.

• Have your back up person keeping an eye on the email account for panicked last minute email messages from candidates who are having difficulty accessing the zoom meeting.

• Bear in mind that a co-host in a zoom meeting typically can’t see who is in the breakout rooms (which we were using as interview rooms) making it hard to help with moving participants from room to room. 

• The host can't move someone from a breakout interview room to the main session so I used a break out room labeled "break room” as a holding place for participants between interviews.  At least one participant in the practice session found it a little disconcerting to suddenly be in a virtual room by themselves.

• It's ok to keep applicants in the Zoom waiting room until their scheduled start time.  Just chat them in the waiting room to let them know you know they are there and will be with them shortly.  At least one practice session participant thought it would be better to be waiting for their interview in the virtual waiting room rather than the main session.

• In order to chat with any users in a breakout room, you have to move yourself into that break out room. 

• Don't depend on everyone seeing the "broadcast message to everyone" message.  This function communicates with all those in breakout rooms and in the main session but it creates a very small message that is hard to see.  Also, it disappears after just a little while so it's easy to miss.

• Consider prepping your faculty that you will zoom chat with them directly and they should convey any timing messages verbally to the candidate.  Then the candidate won't be distracted by messages popping up on their screen while they're sharing that very personal, life-changing experience that prompted them to pursue this specialty.

• I also used a second computer and another UMN (department) account so I could be in two places (breakout rooms) at once.

• Consider leaving the candidates in their own breakout rooms and moving the faculty interviewers from room to room (idea courtesy of Bobbi Kruse!)

• If you are timing this yourself (and you probably are) have a stopwatch/stopwatch function/timer and use it.

• The countdown to the end of the breakout only works if you're about to close all the breakout rooms. 

• Even in the virtual world, it takes time to actually move a candidate from one zoom break out room to another.  Electronic stuff can be slow, especially when you are behind schedule and you really need it to be fast.

• This is no-brainer but make sure you have your interview schedule handy with everyone's names, times, etc.  Believe it or not, I completely forgot about that critical detail in our first practice session.