The Client
SilverBirch Hotels & Resorts is one of Canada’s leading hotel operations and asset management companies. It manages a large portfolio of hotels operating under major franchise brands such as Marriott and Hilton. SilverBirch delivers extraordinary guest experiences by investing in their properties—and their people.
The Challenge
SilverBirch’s corporate team is responsible for the overall operations and financial viability of their business and its hotel partners. The corporate office consists of a finance department, the asset management team, human capital (HR), and IT professionals.Consisting of only three people, SilverBirch’s Corporate Human Capital team is small but mighty. Since they hire for such important roles, finding the right people is crucial. SilverBirch Hotels & Resorts wanted to improve the way they pre-screened job applicants and provide more flexibility to accommodate candidates. They wanted to be confident in their hiring decisions and minimize costly, draining turnover.
The Solution
SilverBirch Hotels & Resorts uses VidCruiter’s pre-recorded video interviews to hire for their entire corporate office, as well as for occasional management positions at their hotels.
“We love VidCruiter,” says Sangeetha Muthiah, Human Capital Coordinator at SilverBirch. “It helps so much with scheduling—and it takes into consideration everyone’s time.”
Muthiah explains to applicants what to expect throughout the hiring process, including the video interview. Since she went through the same video interviewing process when she was hired at SilverBirch two years ago, Muthiah knows both sides of it. “I always tell applicants, ‘I did this, too! I understand it’s a little intimidating, but trust me: it’s easy. Personally, I enjoyed it because I could prepare my answers, record them, and I put my best foot forward.”
Once job seekers are ready for their interview, they simply click on a link within their email invitation to answer six-seven questions anytime of day. The questions alternate between video recorded responses and written answers.
“Rather than intimidating someone and putting them under pressure to perform, we invite candidates to take their time,” explains Muthiah. “We give them a couple of days to complete the pre-recorded video interview.” Candidates can replay and resubmit their answers a few times, which helps take the pressure off.
“At the end of the day, the people we hire don’t report to me, so it’s important the managers can tell me what they’re looking for,” says Muthiah. “We make sure they’re happy with the screening questions for each role.”
Muthiah reviews the video interviews, and once she’s done the initial pre-screening, she shares her top picks for feedback from the rest of the decision-making team.
The Results
Adding pre-recorded video interviews to their hiring process “just makes our lives so much easier,” says Muthiah. “The reason we like VidCruiter is because it makes it easy for candidates to answer interview questions—and for management to provide feedback. We can review the responses on our own time, and replay the responses to really get an idea of what each candidate is like.”
This convenience-based approach to interviewing is helping SilverBirch connect with top talent, including employed individuals, who are often top performers. “If employed people had to come into our office for an interview, they’d need to take time off, or we’d have to work later or over lunch,” says Muthiah. “It’s much easier that we can all do the interview whenever it’s convenient.”
When people who are well-suited for the job are hired, they tend to do better work and be more satisfied in their career. Because of this, they’re more likely to stay with the company for longer, keeping business operations running smoothly.
“Thankfully, we don’t have much turnover, so we don’t need to recruit very often,” explains Muthiah. “VidCruiter helps us a lot. By the time we get to the in-person interview stage, most of the time we’re pretty certain we’ve found the person we want to hire.”
We applaud SilverBirch for being a flexible employer that’s just as accommodating in their hiring process as they are at their hotels and resorts.
“We love VidCruiter.”