Amarillo Independent School District
Our mission is to graduate every student prepared for success beyond high school.
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Chris Tatum, Director
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“With the help of Spark Hire, we’ve offered hundreds of applicants the ability to interview online. Most of our interviews are viewed by multiple viewers, sometimes by as many as 11 different people. Before we used Spark Hire, the scheduling, seat time and man hours away from campus would have cost the district upwards of 2,400 man hours with a cost of close to $103,000. Since using Spark Hire, the district estimates that it only spends 8 minutes per interview which has resulted in their man hours being cut to 270 hours or $12,000 which is a savings of $91,000 per year.”
About Amarillo Independent School District
Amarillo Independent School District is a growing school district of about 35,000 students. Its mission is to graduate every student prepared for success beyond high school.
Goals for Video Interviewing
Amarillo ISD is always looking for new and innovative ways to simplify and clarify their hiring process for many of their positions. When looking into video interviews, Amarillo ISD hoped to save time and money in the hiring process while being more effective in their candidate screening.
Q&A with Director, Chris Tatum
What are some of the results you’ve seen with Spark Hire?
With the help of Spark Hire, we’ve offered hundreds of applicants the ability to interview online. Most of our interviews are viewed by multiple viewers, sometimes by as many as 11 different people.
Before we used Spark Hire, the scheduling, seat time and man hours away from campus would have cost the district upwards of 2,400 man hours with a cost of close to $103,000.
Since using Spark Hire, the district estimates that it only spends 8 minutes per interview which has resulted in their man hours being cut to 270 hours or $12,000 which is a savings of $91,000 per year.
How does video interviewing fit into your hiring process?
Many of our positions are posted with a video interview as the initial step. It has drastically diminished the time spent from interview to hire. Now we don’t have to spend countless hours speaking to each applicant on the phone in order to decide if we want to move forward with them.
How do you get your team members to buy into video interviewing?
Our hiring team is made up of educators from our district. Once we showed them how many less hours they would spend away from campus, they were on board. Not only is our team now able to spend more time with their students, but Spark Hire even works with their busy schedules. They can now view the candidate interviews from any location, at any time that is convenient for them.
The added bonuses are that it is very easy to use for both our candidates and district users, but also how affordable it is. Being a school district, we have to work with a tight budget.
Why should other schools/school districts look into video interviewing?
Once they see the savings of time and resources, it is an easy switch.
We also now use Spark Hire as our interview tool for our Intra-district Transfer Fair process. We feel the video interviews help ensure transparency so every candidate gets a fair shot.
What is your favorite aspect of video interviewing?
Spark Hire truly gives us flexible options for both interview parameters and viewing of the interviews. We no longer have to bring in substitute teachers for days at time to accommodate a long interview process.
What are some things you love about Spark Hire?
I like that I can watch the videos anywhere and the parameters are flexible.
Also, most candidates have the ability to complete the process with ease. Spark Hire is really easy for the entire team and also the end users because it is such an intuitive platform.
What are three words that describe your experience working with Spark Hire?
Flexible, Efficient, Friendly
