Dental Match

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Interviews

Interviews

NMS Interview

  • What is NMS Interview?

    NMS Interview is a module in the NMS Match System that allows residencies to setup their interview schedule online, send invitations to candidates, and allows candidates to instantly self-schedule themselves into available timeslots.

    Related Links:

Scheduling Setup - Interview Types

  • Should I create and schedule interview days or individual meetings?

    NMS Interview is designed to allow candidates to book themselves into events. The events set up by the residency may be individual meetings or a full interview day. The only difference in NMS Interview between setting up an individual meeting event and an interview day event is the name, likely the duration, and how many candidates can book themselves into the event. Each residency must decide for itself whether it wants candidates to book individual meetings or an interview day.

    Interview Day:
    Some residencies use NMS Interview to have candidates book interview days. Once the candidates select their preferred interview day using NMS Interview , the program creates an itinerary (offline, outside of the system) and either:

    • Creates the individual meeting events in NMS Interview and manually schedules each candidate into their events; or,
    • Sends candidates their schedule as a PDF, either by attaching it to the event in the system or emailing it directly to each candidate

    If your interviews involve multiple events on the same day where candidates are occupied for most of the day, or if there is a specific sequence or rotational set of interviews that must take place on the same day, booking an interview day is an easy way to block the necessary time with the candidate that is needed to complete the different meetings. Creating an interview day may be simpler for the residency to set up and for the candidates to schedule.

    However, your residency would still need to put in the effort to manually assign the candidates booked on each day to their individual meetings and share that information with candidates. Furthermore, this approach may reduce the flexibility for candidates to exercise control over their schedules.


    Individual Meetings:
    If your interviews are structured around a discrete set of individual events that can be booked independently, either on the same day or potentially on different days (e.g., Residency Committee interview and virtual open house), then creating different interview types and a set of individual events for each type may be more efficient for both the residency and the candidate. Using this approach, candidates would schedule themselves into specific meeting times, and the interview schedule would be finalized within the system. Residencies would not need to manually assign and send individual interview itineraries, as candidates would be able to see their own itineraries within the system.

    This approach may be somewhat more complex to set up. However, it can significantly reduce the effort required by the residency to schedule individual meetings and communicate itineraries to candidates. It also provides the most flexibility for candidates to control their own schedules.

  • If the expectation is that an applicant needs to sign up for 3 different meetings (faculty interview, director interview, and meeting with current resident), does it make sense to have them sign up for an interview day
    or for them to sign up for each meeting separately?

    The choice is up to you. Most residencies have candidates book interview days and then the residency manually assigned candidates to their meetings outside of the system. However, some residencies may find it more efficient to have candidates book themselves directly into the individual meetings.

    To create an interview day:

    • Create 1 interview type (Interview Day)
    • Add the available events (e.g., 10 candidates from 9am-5pm)
    • Send invitations to your candidates
    • Once booked, create each candidate's itinerary manually, and notify each candidate of their itinerary

    If your program offers an Interview Day, but wants to limit the number of candidates from a certain group that can schedule that day (e.g., your Interview Day can accommodate 8 total candidates, but cannot accommodate more than four ORTHO-2 YR candidates and four ORTHO-3 YR candidates on any one day), you should create two Interview Types (ORTHO-2 YR Interview Day and ORTHO-3 YR Interview Day) and create events for each type with four available slots. That way, for each Interview Day, no more than four ORTHO-2 YR Candidates and four ORTHO-3 YR Candidates will be able to book themselves into that day.

    To create individual meetings:

    • Create 3 interview types (Faculty, Director, current resident)
    • Add the available events for each type of interview (e.g., 1 candidate from 9am-10am)
    • Send invitations to your candidates for all interview types

    Please note that in this example, if you create individual meeting events, you would not necessarily be able to enforce a sequence of these meetings or ensure they happen on the same day. For example, if the available dates for the three interview types overlap, one candidate may schedule Faculty → Director → Resident while another candidate may schedule Director → Resident → Faculty.

  • We need candidates to schedule an interview in the morning and a meeting in the afternoon, and they need to be on the same day. How do we ensure that they book both on the same day?

    Assuming you offer interviews on more than one day and candidates must attend both their AM and PM interviews on the same day, it is likely simpler to have candidates use NMS Interview to select their desired interview day. Once you know which candidate is attending which day, you can notify them of their specific AM and PM timeslot.

    Alternatively, if you want to use NMS Interview so that candidates schedule themselves into specific time slots, you could send two rounds of invitations. First, create an Interview Type called "Interview Day", add the events, and invite all candidates. The candidates would select their preferred interview day. Then, you can create AM and PM interview types for each day (e.g., Wednesday-AM, Wednesday-PM, Thursday-AM, Thursday-PM, etc.), and set up the appropriate interview timeslots (events) for each type of interview. You could then invite candidates who preferred Wednesday to the Wednesday-AM and Wednesday-PM events, and they would schedule themselves into specific timeslots. Candidates who preferred Thursday would be invited to Thursday-AM and Thursday-PM events, and so on.

  • I have panel interviews and individual interviews. Would those be set up as different event types?

    If each interview type can be scheduled independently, you should set these up as different event types. You can create one interview type for individual interviews and one for panel interviews, and then invite your candidates to both types of interviews. The candidates would schedule themselves into one individual interview and one panel interview. Within the system, the only difference between an "Individual Interview" event, and a "Panel Interview" event is the name. The residency would still need to decide which faculty are attending each event.

  • What if you prefer candidates to schedule 3 separate interviews during a 3-hour time block? Is there a way to prompt candidates to do so?

    You can specify the number of candidates that can be accommodated at each separate event.

    If you are scheduling Interview Days, you can specify a different number of candidates for each Interview Day event. For example, you can create an Interview Day event on Thursday with 6 candidates, and then create a second Interview Day event on Friday that can accommodate 10 candidates.

    If you are creating individual meeting events, you can add 6 individual events on Thursday and 10 meetings on Friday.

    Make sure to only enter availability into NMS Interview that you can accommodate. If you need to increase availability after sending invitations, you can either update the event to accommodate additional candidates (for Interview Days) and notify your candidates, or add more events (for individual meetings) and send invitations again for those new events.

Managing Events

  • Can I book candidates into interviews directly, without giving them a choice of dates?

    Yes. If you don't want to allow applicants to schedule themselves, but still want to use NMS Interview so your candidates can see your events in their schedule, and both you and the applicants can gain the benefit of importing rankings from scheduled interviews, use the following procedures:

    1. Create an interview type (e.g., Interview). If your program has multiple tracks, you might create a separate type for each track.
    2. Create your interview events.
    3. Add your candidates.
    4. On your Calendar or Event List, select View for an event.
    5. Use the Force Schedule feature to assign a candidate to the interview.
    6. Repeat for all events in your schedule.

    When a candidate logs in to the NMS Match System, they will see the scheduled interview on their calendar.

    Related Links:
  • Can you explain more about how forced scheduling can offset the potential problem of candidates not being available for any of the slots that are still available when they go to schedule?

    Residencies should try to accommodate the needs of candidates when possible. If a candidate notifies you that they cannot attend any of the available spots, you have a few options:

    1. Create a new event and use the Force Schedule option to assign the candidate to the event. If the candidate is currently scheduled for an event that they cannot attend, you must cancel their scheduled interview before you can Force Schedule them into a different event.
    2. If you can make an additional slot available at an existing event, Force Schedule the candidate into the event. If you Force Schedule a candidate into a timeslot that is currently full, the system will automatically increase the number of slots to make room for the force-scheduled candidate.
    3. Contact one or more of your scheduled candidates and ask if they would be willing to change their interview to another available time. The candidate(s) can either reschedule themselves, which will free up a spot for the candidate that needs to be accommodated, or you can cancel the interview with a scheduled candidate and Force Schedule both candidates into their new interview times.
    Related Links:
  • Can I add a different PDF for each interviewee or is it only the same PDF for everyone interviewing in that slot?

    You can create and upload a PDF of instructions that you would like to provide to candidates for each event. The PDFs are attached to individual events and are available to all candidates scheduled for that event. If only one applicant is scheduled for the event, the PDF is available only to that applicant. If 5 applicants are scheduled for the event, the PDF is available to all 5 applicants.

    If you have an event with multiple scheduled candidates and you want to provide each candidate with their own unique information for the event, you should email the information to each candidate directly.

    Related Links:

Sending Invitations

  • I have concerns about the “first-come, first-served” approach of interview scheduling, and that may not be fair for some applicants, especially those who are last to schedule. What are ways to make this process more equitable?

    One of the challenges with any type of interview scheduling is that, regardless of the type of process you use, some applicants will be among the last to attempt to schedule. Here are some suggested ways to improve the experience for those applicants (and you might even implement more than one of these options):

    1. Provide advance notice of when interview scheduling invitations will be sent by your site, as outlined in the response to the previous question.
    2. Let applicants know that they may contact you for assistance if they run into scheduling problems, and you will work with them to find a mutually convenient time.
    3. Open up a few extra slots to ease the process for applicants who are the last to attempt to schedule. For example, if you invite 30 applicants to an interview, you might place 33 (or whatever number you choose) interview slots on the calendar. This approach guarantees that every applicant will have multiple options, even the last applicant to schedule in this example would have four available slots to choose from. Once scheduling is over, only 30 of those 33 available slots would be filled.
  • Should I notify candidates when our residency will send out invitations?

    Yes, we strongly recommend doing so. Applicant feedback has indicated they greatly appreciate residencies notifying them in advance of the specific date and time when interview invitations will be sent.

    The interview invitation email is transactional in nature. It simply informs the applicant they have been invited to an event and provides a link for them to schedule. Use the email feature on the Candidates Tab to send your candidates a personal communication, congratulating them on being selected for interview and informing them of when they can expect to receive the invitation.

    Related Links:
  • Can we customize the invitation or rejection emails?

    No, you cannot customize the invitation or rejection emails in the NMS Match System. Those emails are simple notification messages. Samples of those emails are available in the NMS Interview User Guide.

    If you'd like to send your applicants more detailed or personal communications, in addition to the interview invitation sent from the system, you can use the Email function on your Candidate List in the system to select and populate candidates' email addresses directly into your email client, then send the communications using your email client.

    Related Links:
  • Is the Invite linked to Teams/Outlook calendar for any changes?

    All candidates and programs have real-time access to the most current information on their interview schedule in the NMS Match System.

    When candidates receive an interview invitation, the invitation includes a calendar file that can be used to add the event to a personal calendar (e.g., Outlook, Google Calendar), but the candidate must explicitly add (i.e., accept) the event file to add it to their calendar.

    Similarly, a program’s interview schedule is not directly synced with Teams, Outlook, or Google Calendar. Programs can download a CSV file of their scheduled events from the Interview Itinerary, which can then be imported into their personal calendar. Any updates to events must be manually edited in their personal calendar.

Managing Candidates

  • How do I create a CSV file of candidates for importing into NMS Interview?

    1. A CSV (Comma Separated Values) file is a plain text file that stores data by delimiting data entries with commas. CSV files can be created from Excel and many other spreadsheet and text editing programs. More information about CSV files is available here.

    Acceptable Format
    The CSV file for NMS Interview should have the following format:

    • The first record in the file must be a header record that provides the name of each field.
    • Each candidate must be on a separate line in the file.
    • Fields that contain a space or comma, or single quotes must be enclosed in double-quotes.
    • The file must have a .csv extension (e.g., candidates.csv).

    Two acceptable formats for the CSV file are provided below. Note that the example on the left only lists the email address, which is the only field that is required in the file. The example on the right has other fields in addition to the email. The other fields are optional and are not required.

    email
    Kong,King,kkong@gmail.com
    cchaplin@gmail.com
    sjones@gmail.com

    "Last Name","First Name",email,group
    Kong,King,kkong@gmail.com,Adult
    Chaplin,"C. G.",cchaplin@gmail.com,Child
    ,,sjones@gmail.com,

    To create a CSV file from Excel:
    The CSV file for NMS Interview should have the following format:

    • Open a Microsoft Excel file that contains the email addresses of the applicants you want to interview. The first record or row in the Excel file should have the name of each field in the file.
    • Click on File in the top left corner and click Save As.
    • Underneath the file name at the bottom of the save screen, you will see the option for Save as type. In this field, select CSV (Comma Delimited)
    • Name your file and choose where to save it. Click Save.
    • Two dialogue pop-ups will appear, alerting you that the format is different. Click OK on the first dialogue box to appear and Yes on the second. You have then successfully saved a CSV file to your computer.

How To Videos

NMS Interview is a module of the NMS Match System that allows residencies to streamline and automate interview scheduling. The following videos provide an overview of how NMS Interview works:

Configure Settings   (2 min)
Add Candidates   (2 min)
Add Interview Events   (2 min)
Send Interview Invitations   (1 min)
Manage Events   (3 min)
Manage Candidates   (3 min)
Candidate Experience   (4 min)







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