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Case Study: Lower Dauphin School District

How Lower Dauphin School District Extends Candidate Resumes With Spark Hire Video Interviews

About Lower Dauphin School District

The mission of the Lower Dauphin School District is to engage all students in a customized educational experience that prepares them to be self-sufficient and contributing members of a global community.

Lower Dauphin is a public school district located in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. Covering 90 square miles, the District is home to five neighborhood elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school. The Lower Dauphin School District has an enrollment of roughly 4,000 students and employs 550 staff members.

Goals for Video Interviewing

The Lower Dauphin HR team wanted to save time. They wanted to avoid lengthy preliminary interviews where they knew five minutes in if a candidate would be a good fit. Additionally, they struggled to receive high quality applicants consistently for every open position. By screening candidates via video, they aimed to save time while enticing more high-quality hires into their talent pool and onto their staff.

Q&A with Angela Hepner, Director of Human Resources:

Q:

What inspired you to look into video interviewing? Were there specific challenges in your day to day were you looking to solve with video interviewing?

A:

Ultimately we wanted to save time. We did not want to be five minutes into a 30+ minute interview already knowing that the candidate wasn't the right fit. We wanted to feel like we were meeting the "best of the best" candidates for each position. Using Spark Hire has helped us have more quality applicants in every interview process.

Q:

Did Spark Hire replace a similar tool or is this the first time your team is using video interviewing?

A:

Spark Hire ultimately eliminated our phone interview/screen. We did not use video interviewing consistently before, but rather only in special circumstances. Now that we use Spark Hire, however, we begin with video interviews with almost every job opening because it is that helpful.

Q:

What criteria did you have in mind for a video interviewing solution?

A:

Our main goal was simple: find a tool that would be easy to use by all parties - hiring managers, candidates, and HR alike.

Q:

What made you choose Spark Hire as your video interviewing solution?

A:

The platform's simple design and the continual work put into enhancing it. We really enjoyed knowing that if the tool did not have exactly what we needed, we could ask and the Spark Hire team could explore the option to further advance the tool. We have continued to work with Spark Hire because our representatives have always been willing to help us better utilize the tool and improve our functionality with it.

Q:

What was getting started with Spark Hire like?

A:

Seamless! We partnered with our representative and walked through a demonstration and then a real-life position together. The ability to partner and communicate with one another through the whole process was great!

Q:

How has Spark Hire improved your hiring metrics and process?

A:

We have 80% of our applicants complete the video interview through Spark Hire. It assists us by eliminating candidates who self-select not to move forward in our process once they see the type of questions we ask. Spark Hire also helps advance quality candidates for the next step within the interview process. Our hiring managers previously had challenges in candidate selection because we would present such variable candidates. Since we introduced Spark Hire, the hiring managers choose candidates much quicker because only the best of the best meet our video interviewing standards.

Q:

What was your team’s hiring process prior to using Spark Hire?

A:

We began by reviewing paper applications and selecting candidates to be phone interviewed/screened or we moved directly into a full in-person interview process.

Q:

How do you get your team members to buy into video interviewing?

A:

This was relatively easy to do - we showed them the demonstration provided by Spark Hire and they were hooked. Spark Hire also let us "sample" the tool for a position before purchasing because they stand behind their product so much.

Q:

What was your aha moment — the moment you knew you loved Spark Hire?

A:

When we can have multiple people reviewing candidates at the same time, reviewing candidates' uploaded resumes, and provide feedback through the tool to summarize where we are all at in review of EACH candidate. Specifically looking at our high volume candidates (think Elementary Teacher) we are able to truly see the best of the best during in-person interviews and lesson demonstrations because of how thorough our review with Spark Hire was.

Q:

Why should other hiring teams look into video interviewing?

A:

When doing a cost benefit analysis based on the quality candidates that we review, it is clearly one of the best investments we have made. We have reduced the amount of time in "wasted" interviews - which is precious time for school administration. We have also been able to use Spark Hire as the first true extension of a candidate's resume - and hear them speak about their experiences.

Q:

What are three words that describe your experience working with Spark Hire?

A:

Innovative, collaborative, investing in the people side of business.

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