Coordinator Process Overview

This guide is intended to help new and existing program coordinators prepare for their recruitment season.

It is important to remember that your program likely has a method for dealing with most of the items on this checklist. The number of different methods for handling the same subject is likely close to the number of programs that are dealing with the subject. If at any time, your program’s methodology does not quite fit the constraints of RezRATE, please contact us, and we will do our best to find a solution that works for you and your program.

• Preparing for the season
  • Think about how many spots you need to fill
  • Consider how many candidates you want to interview per day
  • Inform your evaluators what dates you’re planning to interview on and ask them to block their calendars early on
• Planning Interview Dates
  • Consider how many evaluators you need on each date.
  • Consider how many candidates you want to allow to register for each date.
  • Will there be one session or an AM and PM session?
    • There is no wrong choice here – some programs go all day and others split things up. Regardless of your approach, consider the following:
      • Will you have one welcome session at the start of the day that both groups attend, or will you have a separate welcome session for each group? 
        • Our recommendation is that if you are trying to accommodate candidates’ schedules by only taking up their time for half the day, you should host 2 separate welcomes to optimize the consideration for their time.
  • Plan how many candidates can register for each session.
• Build your evaluation
  • Decide what evaluation criteria you want to use to assess your candidates. This is likely going to be accomplished in conjunction with your program leadership.
    • Be mindful of how you will screen applicants to decide who you want to extend invitations to.
    • Consider what values or behaviors you want to look for (or avoid) when building your evaluation.
    • Try to keep the evaluation process easy to understand and quick to fill out.
    • Remember that any evaluators involved in the screening process AND the interview/evaluation process can have their responses flow from screening to evaluating if there are questions that overlap.
      • Example:
        • If your program’s screening process and evaluation form contain a question about letters of recommendation, those questions can be linked.
        • The response given by a screener who also interviews will follow over from the screening process to the evaluation process, so they don’t have to read the LoR a second time. If they choose to give a different score at that time, they can, and it will not affect the screening response.
• Candidates apply to program
  • Typically, candidates apply through a match platform such as SF Match or ERAS
  • In some programs (typically Fellowships), candidates apply directly or utilize a smaller match platform.
• Programs screen applicants and pick who they want to offer an interview
  • The screening process varies from program to program
  • Candidates can be screened through a combination of filters and assessments
  • This can be done by one individual, or a committee
    • The screening process can be done in many ways, evaluating in ERAS or SF Match is possible, however it can be advantageous to utilize the RezRATE platform for this step.
    • Committees can split the candidate pool up (divide and conquer)
      • Example – 50 candidates to evaluate; 5 evaluators:
        • Evaluator A evaluates candidates 1-10
        • Evaluator B evaluates candidates 11-20
        • Evaluator C evaluates candidates 21-30
        • Evaluator D evaluates candidates 31-40
        • Evaluator E evaluates candidates 41-50
    • Committees can overlap to candidates with a pool of evaluators
      • Example – 50 candidates to evaluate; 5 evaluators:
        • Evaluator A evaluates candidates 1-20
        • Evaluator B evaluates candidates 11-30
        • Evaluator C evaluates candidates 21-40
        • Evaluator D evaluates candidates 31-50
        • Evaluator E evaluates candidates 51-10
      • There are no rules about how to divide the candidates up to committee members – ultimately this comes down to what works best for your team.
• Pick which candidates to send invitations
  • When using a screening process where you apply scores to the candidates, you can sort your candidates by score and invite the top candidates for interview.
  • Ultimately, your program needs to decide how many candidates to invite.
    • Do you want to invite only for the number of slots you have available?
    • Do you want to invite extra and allow candidates to be placed on a waitlist?
      • Your program’s professional society may have guidance on invitations- we recommend you check their rules and suggestions.
  • Invitations can be sent from your match platform, but sending directly from RezRATE has some advantages.
    • When candidates register through RezRATE it’s seamless to build interview day schedules.
    • If a candidate cancels, they’re automatically removed from the schedule and another candidate can be slotted into their spot.
    • Coordinators only need to interface with one tool to manage the entire recruitment season once candidates have been imported from the match platform.
• Once candidates are invited, they will make their selections and be slotted into dates
  • RezRATE slots candidates using the following methodology
    • First come first serve
    • Candidate preferences
    • Availability on the interview session
  • In the event that a candidate only picks sessions that are already at capacity, they will be waitlisted for all dates they selected.
• Building the interview day schedule
  • Select a start time for your session
  • Set the interview duration
    • This is how long each evaluator will meet with each candidate
  • Set a passing period duration
    • This is time between interviews
      • Passing periods provide some wiggle room for candidates to move from one meeting to the next (great for both virtual and on-site interviews)
      • This also gives evaluators a moment to complete their evaluation
      • This time can also be used to gather your thoughts and grab a sip of coffee
  • Select the available evaluators for this interview session
    • Evaluators can be grouped into a single column to accommodate panel interviews
    • Have one evaluator in each room
    • Or, use a hybrid approach
  • Create any custom events
    • Welcome meetings, lunch breaks, wrap-ups, tours
    • Each meeting can have a custom duration and passing period
    • For virtual, each meeting can use a single link or custom meeting links for each
  • Schedule your candidates
    • You can do this step manually
    • You can use the ‘Generate Schedule’ button
      • We allow you to set the maximum number of interviews per candidate or leave at unlimited to have each candidate meet with each evaluator
• Communicate with candidates. There are many times you will communicate with candidates.
  • Sending invitations
  • Sending interview day schedules
  • Sending program information
  • Informing candidates, they were not selected for interviews
    • NOTE: This is not a comprehensive list
• Team Evaluation status
  • Check to make sure evaluators have finished their evaluations – ask them to wrap up if they haven’t.
• Rank Meeting
  • Review the results of the candidate evaluations
  • Discuss each candidate’s position on the rank list
  • Consider moving candidates up and down
  • Consider removing problematic candidates from the rank
  • Finalize your rank (save/export the list)
• Submit your rank
  • For NRMP programs, you can export your rank list and copy and paste it to the NRMP to finalize your rank.
  • If your program picks a candidate and extends an invitation to join directly, you can utilize the rank list to decide who to extend the offer to.