Photo by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash

In our recently published White Paper “Recruiting the Best: It’s not Who You Interview, It’s How” we relate how and why the MMI transitioned to a virtual environment. Here’s an excerpt: 

The pandemic has accelerated trends with respect to virtual remote working and virtual recruiting with both increased opportunity and increased challenges.  Where historically HR professionals were recruiting locally or regionally, they are now finding talent nationally, and even globally, given the nature of remote working and its widespread acceptance among the workforce. 

Far from being an impediment, these models provide a competitive advantage. Given the demand for a virtual recruiting solution, ProspectHR MMI commenced development of a virtual solution for the MMI and successfully launched the virtual Multiple Mini Interview (vMMI) with two U.S. medical schools in the fall of 2020. 

The vMMI has all the advantages of the in-person MMI with the following additional benefits: 

• Expands your candidate pool as there are no geographic or economic barriers to attend a vMMI.
• Recruiting outside of the local talent pool can provide access to higher-quality candidates and a more diverse workforce.
• Expands your selection of interviewers as they can interview from any location.
• Enables inclusion of diverse interviewers external to your organization, demonstrating commitment to diversity and inclusion.Reduces logistics and costs associated with in-person interviews. 
• Enables business continuity when face-to-face interviewing is not possible.
• Provides enhanced confidentiality for leadership candidates and greater engagement of senior level interviewers when promoting internal talent or identifying high potentials for succession planning.
• Provides some insight into candidate facility and comfort with technology which may be important if relevant to position(s) being recruited for. 

While acknowledging the benefits of virtual interviewing, it is important to recognize that there are some disadvantages:  

• Less opportunity for deciphering a candidate’s “body language”.
• Internet connectivity issues can sometimes be problematic.
• Potential for background disruption or distraction at the candidate’s end. • Less computer savvy candidates may be disinclined to participate (12)

Overall, the advantages of virtual interviewing appear to outweigh the disadvantages, particularly when an organization needs  to recruit a large number of positions in a short time frame, is not able to conduct in-person interviews, and needs to ensure confidentiality of their internal talent or external candidates for leadership positions. 

It is believed that a combination of traditional and virtual recruiting methods will be the “new normal”, in the same way that a hybrid workforce of onsite and remote employees has become more normalized during the pandemic paradigm (13). 

The ProspectHR virtual Multiple Mini Interview (vMMI) process, developed over the last few years, continues to evolve to provide a seamless process for those organizations who plan to go completely virtual in the future or maintain a hybrid model of recruiting.

To read the full White Paper please visit https://www.prospecthrmmi.com/whitepaper