Are In-Person Or Virtual Interviews More Effective?

The Carework recruiting team has helped agencies nationwide hire tens of thousands of caregivers. Here's our take.

The answer boils down to two factors: where in the hiring process you struggle with show-up rates, and how much your new caregivers struggle with basic professionalism.

The first consideration is show-up rates. Essentially, it depends on whether you struggle more with getting people to interviews or with getting people to orientation.

It's not surprising that the interview show-up rates tend to be higher on virtual interviews. However, our data shows that those who attend in-person interviews will have higher orientation attendance.

If you have a large territory that you cover or you are located further outside a larger city, a virtual interview could be right for your office. This alleviates the cost of gas and drive time factors in whether or not a caregiver shows up for an interview. 

The second consideration is about what we might call basic standards of professionalism. If you find that it’s a consistent challenge to gauge who will show up on time to shifts reliably and present in a way that represents your agency favorably, in-person interviews provide an extra opportunity to gauge this in an applicant.

In this case, we suggest offering to reimburse for ride or bus share fees or handing out a gas gift card as a thank you for making the effort to be there in person.

You should balance this consideration against the importance of speed and convenience in your hiring process as you make your decision. 

Either way, make sure that you have clear and simple directions for your applicant to follow on how to attend the interview. You can send reminders with links to the virtual platform and give clear directions for parking and finding your office in person.

Prefer watching over reading? Watch this answer (and others) on our Instagram.

Every month, our recruiters host a Zoom call where we answer questions like this one. It's free to join and you can submit your own questions! See the schedule and sign up here.