Journal of surgical education
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The Virtual Recruitment Onion: Peeling Back the Layers of the Interview Season During the COVID-era.
We sought to characterize General Surgery residency program directors' (PDs) baseline perspective on how the COVID-19 mandated changes to the recruitment and interview processes impacted how the PDs evaluated and recruited the applicants. ⋯ A complete replacement of the in-person interviews with virtual-only interviews may be challenging unless buy-in exists from key stakeholders in the surgical community. Our study highlights the PDs' hesitation in assessing candidates' commitment to surgery from virtual interviews alone. Incorporating virtual interviews as a part of the screening process for applicants may serve as an avenue to maximize the benefits of the virtual interview format. Furthermore, COVID-19 pandemic has normalized the growing social media presence of residency programs, adding to the changing landscape of recruiting and interviewing applicants for General Surgery residency match.