How ScribeAmerica Is Transforming Candidate Screening Experiences With Video

Are you spending time screening every candidate by phone one by one? With automated video interviewing software, your teams can speed up the hiring process while gathering an authentic impression of candidates and eliminating the need for time-consuming phone screening calls.

At IAMPHENOM, ScribeAmerica’s Adam Jacoby-Rankin, Program Manager, Talent Acquisition, walked us through how using video has helped his team optimize collaboration, create better candidate experiences, and reduce time to hire. He was joined by Phenom’s Head of Video Product Sebastian Newohner, who provides insight on why this technology is becoming critical to the talent experience.

Read on to get the key takeaways from this inspiring session on the benefits of automation for hiring at scale.

The Demands of High-Volume Hiring

At ScribeAmerica — the world’s largest medical scribe company — the TA team makes roughly 2,500 hires per month to keep up with the demand for filling medical scribe job roles. According to Jacoby-Rankin, his team faced challenges related to time constraints, lack of transparency, and candidate quality.

“We were burning a lot of admin time on low-quality candidates or no-shows. People either weren’t a good fit, or they weren’t interested once they got to the phone screening. We had a team of 40 coordinating phone calls, and there was no way to communicate about candidates between them. It was hard to spot top talent in this generic pool.”

In fact, in one month, those 40 team members spent a cumulative 225,000 minutes solely on screening and interviewing 7,500 candidates — about 15 to 30 minutes per session.

A contributing factor to the struggle to find top talent? “We had no candidate engagement tools. We didn’t have a career site, blogs, or chatbot. Candidates would just apply through the ATS and that’s where it ended,” Jacoby-Rankin explained.

That meant recruiters were stuck performing repetitive manual work coordinating and conducting phone screenings with candidates who really had no idea what it would be like to work at ScribeAmerica, or what the job role entailed.

At the end of the day, the candidate experience fell short of the company’s high standards: ScribeAmerica has a strong employer value prop and has garnered the Forbes Best Midsize Employer designation many times over. Jacoby-Rankin’s team realized they needed to automate processes and provide recruiters with advanced tools to give job candidates an equally high-quality experience.

Phenom’s Intelligent Talent Experience platform gave ScribeAmerica the career site capabilities it lacked to boost attraction and engagement — but it was Phenom One-Way Interviews (with video, audio and text-based screening capabilities) that was one of the biggest game-changers for ScribeAmerica’s TA teams.

Why Is Video Becoming a Must-Have in the Interviewing Process?

Phenom is seeing an increase in the number of users asking for video capabilities, according to Newohner. “We had 2 million video assessments or interviews completed in the last year,” he said. “[Employers] are reaching a point where [they] need to introduce automation into the hiring process to speed things up. Otherwise, talent will be hired by other organizations that are moving faster.”

In fact, recruiters typically spend just 2 to 3 minutes on average viewing each video assessment, compared to allotting 15 to 30 minutes for a phone screening.

Beyond the dramatic savings in recruiter time and effort, video screening candidates helps employers get ahead while offering the following benefits:

1. Authenticity that transcends the cover letter

Saying goodbye to this old staple of the hiring process saves time for candidates and recruiters. It also guards against the emerging challenge of job seekers using generative AI to write cover letters that may not accurately represent their true abilities and skills. In contrast, video assessments give recruiters an authentic first impression.

2. Faster and more informed decision-making

In a high-volume hiring scenario where you get thousands of applicants, video helps define those who are truly interested and have learned about the position. This is something that ScribeAmerica has seen first-hand, Jacoby-Rankin said. “It allows us to make decisions quicker because we can easily vet the candidates who are completing [the assessment] and then look at those as opposed to sifting through profiles that aren't [interested].”

3. A win with candidates who are already familiar with video content

Just as recruiters appreciate getting an authentic look at job applicants, candidates like having the opportunity to showcase their personality. In fact, candidates rate the tool 4.6 out of 5 stars on average, Newohner said.

4. Enhanced collaboration among hiring team members

When one-way interviews are part of a platform, they’re accessible for interviewing team members to view and share feedback in real time. That way, interviewers can quickly reach a consensus on which candidates to move forward instead of dealing with the traditional back and forth of trying to find time to sync on potential candidates for open roles.

Video in the Hiring Process: What’s the Experience Actually Like?

When a ScribeAmerica candidate applies for a medical scribe position, they immediately land on a video assessment screening page. But this isn’t a default setting.

ScribeAmerica opted for this format because they find that candidates complete the assessment more reliably this way, Jacoby-Rankin said, and they leverage automated emails and SMS reminders for candidates who leave the screen. This decision is followed up by:

End-to-end personalization. The assessment begins in a branded lobby that centralizes everything the candidate needs to successfully complete their recording. Critically, the Phenom tool allows recruiters to warm things up by creating a personalized intro and closing video. “It helps this so-called impersonal process become much more human,” Newohner pointed out.
Efficiency for all stakeholders. What do you need before you can run a video assessment? You need the right questions. With Phenom X+, Generative AI helps recruiters draft contextually relevant questions to be completed by applicants via One-Way Video Interviews. Recruiters can pre-define a time limit for answering questions, and candidates get the option of doing retakes. Once the assessment has been submitted and hits ScribeAmerica’s CRM, the recruiter can review it, add their notes, and send it to the rest of the hiring team for feedback.

Spotlight on Results

Just six months after implementing One-Way Interviews in the form of video assessments, ScribeAmerica tracked show-stopping improvements that led to faster hiring and more strategic decision-making: