Background
McMaster Physiotherapy is well known for its intimate class sizes that allow professors to maximize problem-based learning and hands-on work. Accepting on average 70 students per year in their program, McMaster Physiotherapy needs to ensure they're admitting the right students to this tight-knit group. To do so, the program relies on a final interview to assess applicants' soft skills and traits that may not be represented in their written application.
Challenge
Expanding your applicant pool
“Our traditional interviewing process required a lot of coordination, and incurred significant costs, so we were limited in the number of people we could bring in for the interview,” shared Sarah Wojkowski, Associate Professor at McMaster Physiotherapy.
“We realized we were limiting ourselves and our applicants, as many of them couldn’t attend due to financial or scheduling barriers.”
Knowing that they were likely missing out on applicants, McMaster Physiotherapy looked for a way to increase the total number of interviews without needing additional resources.
“We were limiting our applicant pool of applicants. In that area alone, the value of using a virtual platform, and partnering with a team like Kira, is significant.”
- Sarah Wojkowski, Associate Professor at McMaster PhysiotherapySolution
Creating a scalable interviewing process
With Kira's Asynchronous Assessment, McMaster Physiotherapy is able to scale their interview process, connecting with more applicants without any additional team resources.
“Whereas before applicants were selected for an interview based on their sub-GPA, now every applicant, as long as they meet the minimum requirements set by our graduate studies office, has the opportunity to show us who they are in an interview,” explained Shelby-Lynn Dunbar, Acting Program Coordinator.
Results
Doubling the applicant pool
With Kira, McMaster has increased their interviewing capacity by 183%.
By transitioning from on-site MMI to Kira, McMaster was able to increase nearly double the applicant interviews while avoiding overload on their admissions team side.
“We’re able to offer the interview experience to almost triple the number of applicants,” she continued. “We’re also able to offer them more flexibility when it comes to completing their interview. Their candidacy in our program is no longer dependent on them being available during a three-day window.”
