When you’re recruiting for a children’s home, which interview method should you use to conduct the first interview? Do you start with a short telephone conversation, arrange a video interview on Teams, or invite the candidate straight into the home for a face-to-face interview? Now consider exactly the same question from the other side. You’re an experienced Residential Childcare Worker, Senior, Deputy or Registered Manager looking for your next opportunity. Three children’s homes want to speak to you. One offers a telephone interview, another a video interview and the third asks you to visit the home. Which would you choose?
That’s what makes this an interesting question. The employer, with a fantastic position to fill, is deciding which interview process works best for them, while the candidate, in great demand, is deciding which process works best for them too. Those two answers won’t necessarily be the same. Drawing on my experience of supporting children’s services and candidates through recruitment, I thought it would be useful to look at the benefits and limitations of each approach from both sides of the interview table. After all, an agreement only gets done when both sides are happy, so if you are not considering the other side perhaps you are missing a trick!
THE TELEPHONE INTERVIEW – A USEFUL SCREENING TOOL OR UNNECESSARY DUPLICATION?
A telephone interview can be a very useful recruitment tool, but its value depends heavily on what has happened before it.
If somebody has applied directly to your organisation, a short telephone conversation can be an excellent way of establishing the basics before committing both parties to a formal interview. You can clarify their experience, motivations, expectations, salary, location and working patterns, while giving the candidate enough information to decide whether they want to continue.
However, if you’re working with a good specialist recruitment partner, much of this should already have been done for you. Before presenting a candidate, your recruiter should have spoken to them properly. They should understand their experience, why they’re looking, what they’re looking for next, their salary expectations, location, availability and working preferences. Just as importantly, they should have discussed your opportunity with them and established that there is genuine interest. If your recruitment partner has already carried out that work, I’m not convinced there’s much value in the employer repeating the same screening exercise. In fact, if you feel you need to telephone every agency candidate to check the information your recruiter has already provided, I’d question whether you have enough confidence in your recruitment partner. If you don’t trust their judgement or screening sufficiently to progress someone to a meaningful interview, perhaps the answer isn’t another stage in your process; it may be finding a recruitment partner you do trust to carry out that work properly.
There will, of course, be exceptions. A particularly complex role may require a conversation that is difficult for an external recruiter to replicate. A Registered Manager or senior leadership vacancy, for example, might involve specific organisational circumstances, plans for the service or expectations that are better explained directly by the employer. In those circumstances, a telephone conversation can be valuable. But its purpose should be clear. A telephone interview should create engagement, not another hurdle. If both parties like what they hear, the objective should be to lock in that interest and arrange the formal interview as quickly as possible. There is little value in having a positive telephone conversation on Monday and then offering the candidate a formal interview two weeks later. In a competitive recruitment market, there is every chance somebody else will have interviewed and offered them a position before you’ve seen them.
For the candidate, this matters too. A short conversation can be an easy way to explore an opportunity without immediately committing to travel or taking time away from work. If that conversation increases their interest, however, they’ll reasonably expect something to happen next.
So telephone interviews certainly have a place, but I would keep them short, purposeful and fast-moving. Establish whether there is sufficient interest on both sides and, if there is, get the formal meeting booked.
THE VIDEO INTERVIEW – CONVENIENCE WITHOUT LOSING THE HUMAN CONNECTION
Video is different because it can credibly operate as the formal interview itself. For the candidate, much of the convenience of telephone interviewing remains. There’s no travelling, it can often be arranged around existing work, and they don’t necessarily need to sacrifice half a day to explore an opportunity. For the employer, however, it offers considerably more than a screening call. You can conduct a structured interview, explore experience and motivations in depth, ask safeguarding and scenario-based questions, and follow up on answers in real time. Both parties can see one another, which helps the conversation feel more personal and gives the candidate their first real interaction with somebody from the organisation. This can be particularly useful when you’re recruiting candidates who live further away. Someone might hesitate to make a 90-minute round trip for an initial meeting but be perfectly willing to spend 45 minutes on Teams. If that interview goes well and their interest increases, travelling to see the home suddenly becomes a very different proposition.
The limitation is obvious: they still haven’t experienced your service. The candidate hasn’t walked through the door, met potential colleagues or gained a real sense of the environment and culture. Likewise, the employer hasn’t had the opportunity to interact with them in person. This raises an important question for both sides. Is the video interview enough to make a final decision, or is its real strength that it allows both parties to decide whether a face-to-face meeting is worth the additional commitment?
For some roles and organisations, video followed by a service visit may provide an excellent balance between efficiency and depth. For others, particularly where both parties are already highly engaged, going directly to face-to-face may be preferable.
The important thing is not to add stages simply because you can or feel that you should. Every additional stage should give you information or confidence you didn’t already have.
THE FACE-TO-FACE INTERVIEW – ASKING MORE, BUT POTENTIALLY GAINING MORE
A face-to-face interview undoubtedly asks more from both parties. For a candidate who is already working full-time, it may mean arranging time away from work, travelling to the service, attending an interview and travelling home. If they’re considering several opportunities, they may not have the time or annual leave to do this for every children’s home that wants to meet them. That matters because employers aren’t necessarily choosing between candidates who are waiting patiently for their decision. Candidates are choosing between employers too. Imagine you’re an experienced Deputy Manager and three organisations want to interview you. One offers a Teams interview tomorrow evening. Another can meet you face-to-face later that week. The third asks you to travel to its service during working hours two weeks from now. Even if the third opportunity sounds interesting, which process are you most likely to progress with first? Additionally, employers have to pull valuable senior resources from their work, often having them drive to another site. Not great when there is a chance of the dreaded no-show!
However, the additional commitment of a face-to-face interview can also bring considerable value. For the employer, you have an opportunity for a deeper and more natural conversation. You can explore scenarios, involve other appropriate members of the team and gain a fuller impression of the person you’re considering bringing into the home. Perhaps even more importantly, the candidate gets to interview you. Someone joining a children’s home isn’t simply choosing a salary and job description. They’re choosing a manager, colleagues, working environment and organisational culture. They’re choosing somewhere they could spend 40 hours or more every week.
Visiting the service can turn somebody who was simply interested in a vacancy into somebody who can genuinely imagine themselves working there. They can experience how they’re welcomed, how the manager communicates, what the environment feels like and, where appropriate, meet some of the people they could be working alongside. In turn, and crucially, when they accept the role – this can hugely increase the chances of them actually successfully putting in the work to complete onboarding and start the role.
That makes face-to-face interviewing an attraction tool as well as an assessment tool. So the question isn’t simply whether face-to-face is better. It’s whether the additional information and engagement it provides justify what you’re asking from the candidate and your own team.
WHAT ABOUT AI?
There is another option beginning to appear in recruitment: the AI interview. I recently conducted a poll across my own LinkedIn network, which is specifically focused on residential childcare, asking:
“Would you attend an AI interview for a role in care?”
73 people responded and the result was emphatic: 88% said no, while only 12% said yes.
It’s a relatively small poll, but such a strong response from a residential childcare-focused network is worth considering. While AI may help with aspects of the recruitment process in future – there is an overwhelming feeling that staff in our sector do not want to replace human interaction in the interview process. If you’re recruiting somebody to work in a profession built around human relationships, asking their first meaningful interaction with your organisation to be with AI may send a message you didn’t intend.
There is also the same two-way issue we’ve seen with the other formats. An employer may receive useful information from an AI interview, but what does the candidate receive? They haven’t met their potential manager, developed a relationship or had a natural opportunity to ask the questions that might make them more interested in the role. Who knows what the future may hold but my advice right now is simple – use it right now and be prepared to lose a proportion of quality candidates. That’s expensive and a definite false economy in my book.
WHAT DOES OFSTED EXPECT?
A quick word here about Ofsted expectations as of course, children’s homes can’t design their interview processes purely around candidate attraction and convenience. Recruitment must also be safe, thorough and capable of establishing that somebody is suitable to work with children. Ofsted doesn’t prescribe whether an interview should be conducted by telephone, video or face-to-face. The regulatory focus is on providers satisfying themselves that the people they employ are appropriately qualified, competent and suitable for their role, alongside completing the required safer recruitment checks and obtaining the relevant Schedule 2 information.
That’s an important distinction. A face-to-face interview isn’t automatically a robust interview, just as a video interview isn’t automatically a weaker one. You could spend an hour sitting opposite somebody asking generic questions and learn relatively little about their suitability. Equally, a well-structured video interview could thoroughly explore their experience, motivations, safeguarding knowledge, values and judgement. The question for the employer should therefore be whether the overall recruitment process gives sufficient evidence and confidence to make a safe and informed appointment.
There are additional considerations when bringing candidates into a children’s home. Ofsted’s guidance states that prospective employees being interviewed at the setting should be supervised. If shadowing forms part of recruitment, that also needs to be carefully managed, including supervision, staffing arrangements and access to children’s personal information.
So rather than asking, “Which interview format would Ofsted prefer?”, perhaps the better question is:
“What do we need to establish about this person, and does our recruitment process allow us to establish it properly?”
PERHAPS THE REAL QUESTION IS WHAT EACH STAGE ADDS
There isn’t a single interview format that will be right for every candidate, role or children’s home. What I would challenge is the assumption that more stages automatically mean better recruitment. If a specialist recruiter has already interviewed and qualified the candidate, an employer telephone screening them again may add very little. If a comprehensive video interview has established everything you need and the candidate subsequently visits the service, do you need another hour-long formal interview simply because your process says you do? Conversely, for a complex senior role, several conversations may be entirely justified because each has a different purpose. Every stage should therefore earn its place.
Ask yourself: What will we know after this stage that we don’t know already? Then ask the same question from the candidate’s perspective: What will they know about us afterwards that they don’t know already? If neither side is gaining very much, you may simply be making the recruitment journey longer which in turn will put you at a competitive disadvantage.
SPEED MATTERS AS MUCH AS FORMAT
Whichever format you choose, there is little benefit in creating an attractive first stage if the process then stalls. If a telephone conversation establishes mutual interest, arrange the formal interview. If a Teams interview goes extremely well, tell the candidate quickly that you want to progress them. If you’ve met somebody face-to-face and think they’re excellent, don’t leave them wondering for a week while you decide what happens next. Being responsive doesn’t mean compromising safer recruitment. Checks still need to be completed and decisions still need to be properly considered. It means removing avoidable waiting time. Candidates don’t stop speaking to other employers simply because they’ve interviewed with you. A candidate who leaves your interview excited about the opportunity can become somebody else’s new employee surprisingly quickly if they hear nothing from you afterwards.
WHERE SHOULD YOUR RECRUITMENT PARTNER FIT?
This is why I believe a good specialist recruitment partner should be involved throughout the process rather than simply sending a CV and waiting to hear what happens.
Before you’ve even seen the candidate, they should have done much of the initial work. They should understand their experience, motivations, expectations, availability and circumstances. They should have properly discussed your opportunity and established genuine interest. That should allow you to start further along the recruitment journey, rather than repeating work that’s already been done.
Your recruitment partner should also understand your interview process well enough to advise on the best next step. A passive candidate who has been approached about your role may initially need a convenient Teams meeting. Someone already enthusiastic and ready to see the service may be better going straight to face-to-face. A complex leadership appointment may benefit from an initial direct conversation with the employer before the formal interview. Once interviews begin, your recruiter should keep both sides engaged, gather honest feedback, identify concerns and help maintain momentum.
If you don’t have enough confidence in your recruitment partner to rely on their screening, or they’re unable to give you that level of insight into the candidate, I’d question whether you’ve got the right recruitment partner. The purpose of using a specialist shouldn’t be to add another person and another stage to recruitment. It should be to remove work, improve information and help both sides reach the right decision more efficiently.
SO, PHONE, VIDEO OR FACE-TO-FACE – WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE?
The answer may be different depending on which side of the table you’re sitting.
As an employer, telephone may offer speed, video may provide an efficient formal interview, and face-to-face may give you the greatest opportunity to assess somebody in person. As a candidate, telephone may be the easiest way to explore an opportunity, video may give you convenient access to the employer, while face-to-face may give you the best opportunity to decide whether you can actually see yourself working there.
Whichever option you choose, always bear in mind that the best process is one that properly considers the needs of both the employer and the candidate.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
If you work in residential childcare, which would you prefer for your first meaningful interview: phone, video or face-to-face – and why?
And if you recruit Residential Childcare Workers, Seniors, Deputies or Registered Managers, which do you prefer – and what does that format give you that the others don’t?
COMING NEXT: DIRECT EXPERIENCE OR TRANSFERABLE SKILLS?
When recruiting into residential childcare, how much should direct experience really matter?
Should we prioritise candidates who have already worked in children’s homes, or could someone from education, youth work, mental health, the armed forces, policing, adult social care or even retail bring valuable skills and experience? I’ll look at the pros and cons of recruiting for direct experience versus transferable skills, where we should draw the line, and which roles may genuinely require previous residential childcare experience.
I’d also like to hear your experiences. Have you recruited someone from a completely different sector who went on to thrive in residential childcare? Or have you made appointments where a lack of direct experience ultimately proved difficult?
Share your examples with me – the good and the bad – and I’ll explore some of those journeys.
LOOKING FOR A NEW RECRUITMENT PARTNER OR YOUR NEXT ROLE?
If you’re recruiting within residential childcare and looking for a specialist recruitment partner, or you’re a candidate considering your next move, we’d be very happy to talk. At Peters Dean Care, we work with children’s services and candidates throughout the recruitment journey, helping to streamline the process and, most importantly, bring the right people together.
Thank you for reading and please feel free to like, share and comment!
