5 Best Reasons to Conduct a Skype Interview with a Physician Candidate

New advances in technology have helped the delivery of healthcare grow by leaps and bounds. While many physcians and healthcare administrators have embraced new technologies that enable providers to deliver care more effectively, many have not yet embraced these new tools in the recruitment sphere.

One of the best tools at the disposal of practice administrators and physican recruiters during the interview process is the Skype interview. These interviews are effective, efficient, and informative for both candidates and employers for the following reasons:

1. It’s more convenient than site visits for Candidates

A physician who is actively searching for a new opportunity often has difficulty setting aside time to conduct a site visit, especially if multiple days and hours of travel are required. By selecting to conduct Skype interviews in lieu of multiple site visits, an employer can make a fantastic impression and come across as considerate to a prospective candidate who may not be able to take off additional time off.

2. It allows you to put a face to a name

While the phone screening can be an effective tool, it can also be cold and impersonal. By using a Skype interview as a bridge between the phone screening and site visit, employers and candidates can put a face to a name. This personal connection often helps a candidate feel more comfortable and at ease during a site visit, allowing for their true personality to shine.

3. Easier for scheduling purposes

As any Physician Recruiter or Hospital Administrator can tell you, one of the most difficult aspects of the candidate interview process is coordinating meetings between multiple physicians, administrators, and candidates. Conducting multiple, separate Skype interviews instead of one or two days of on site interviews with a variety of people can be infinitely simpler for all parties involved.

4. Establish if a Physician is tech savvy

More and more practices are utilizing tools such as telemedicine to enhance the quality of care physicians provide to their patients. Many of these tools have a steep learning curve, and practices that utilize them heavily often benefit from individuals who are familiar with these or similar tools.

5. It’s cost effective!

Possibly one of the most important – and popular – reasons for conducting Skype interviews is their ability to reduce costs in the candidate interview process. Even if it turns out that your organization needs to rent equipment to conduct an interview via Skype, the cost of the rental is significantly lower than the cost of one or multiple site visits that result in a candidate being ruled out. Furthermore, if your practice is located in a popular vacation location, these types of interviews can help in weeding out those physcians who are only interested in visiting your practice on vacation.