Kira Applicant Experience Report 2021

What do applicants think of an interviewing or assessment experience in Kira? Discover what they had to say and how they thought the platform compared to other virtual experiences.

While 2021's applicants are pursuing a wide variety of professions, from medicine to business to engineering, there is one thing they all have in common: they are trailblazers.

From fully remote to various styles of hybrid, 2021 saw schools redefining what the future of higher education will look like, from admissions to in-classroom instruction. This year’s applicants were the first to showcase their passions and talents through these new processes.

That’s why this year’ s applicant experience report is more important than ever. Seeing an almost 20% increase in applicants, more interviews and assessments were completed in Kira in 2021 than ever before. And with the launch of Live Interviewing, these applicants also had the opportunity to interact with their interviewers and evaluators in brand new ways.

Whether they were experiencing the Kira platform through our new live video interviewing, or our applicant-favourite Asynchronous Assessment, discover what the applicants of 2021 had to say about their experience with Kira Talent.

What was new for applicants in 2021?
By the numbers
By the comments
Reports from other years

What was new for applicants in 2021?

This year Kira brought a whole new way of interviewing to our clients. Purposefully built for admissions interviewing, and fully customizable to your unique process, Live Interviewing in Kira Talent is a game-changer for admissions.

With Live Interviewing making its debut in early 2021, we saw applicants embrace the real-time connection they had been missing during the early stages of the pandemic, while being delighted by the convenience of a video interviewing tool that “just worked the way you expected it to”. It was validating to hear that the effort we poured into creating a video interviewing tool that delivered a more engaging, personalized, and stress-free virtual interview, resulted in an experience that applicants described as miles ahead of their previous video interviews.

Maintaining last year’s record 4.6/5 star applicant rating, we are thrilled to report that applicants are continuing to love their experience with Kira, whether it’s on-demand or in real-time.

And that’s just the benchmark we’re setting for ourselves. Since its launch, the team at Kira has continued to make improvements to Live Interviewing; adding to and refining functionality, boosting load capacity and enhancing the overall experience.

Learn how Live Interviewing is setting the stage for admissions in 2022

By the numbers

90.3% of applicants rated their Kira experience either “Great” (4/5) or “Exceptional” (5/5)

For our team at Kira, this is everything! We’re thrilled that applicants are continuing to feel empowered while sharing their stories via Kira, and we’re ever-expanding the ways in which they’re able to do so.

The average rating was “Exceptional” (4.6/5)

Maintaining our “Exceptional” rating from last year, we’re especially proud of how this is reflected in applicants' experiences with Live Interviewing right out of the gate. As we continue to build new products to better serve admissions teams, our partner schools can be confident that we’ll continue to deliver on our promises.

1.8% of applicants rated their experience as “Poor” (1/5)

Although we always love to hear about applicants’ great experiences, it’s from this small group that we often get great insights for future improvements.

We’ve already been able to address many of the concerns that these applicants had, from enabling them to test their speaker prior to their interview, to an auto-save feature for written responses.

Another common concern we heard from applicants was the time limitations they were given during their assessment. Given that prep and response times are determined by our partner schools, we’re able to anonymize this applicant feedback and share it with the respective program, ensuring they get candid feedback directly from their applicants.

97% of inquiries were solved instantly by Charlie

From device management to network issues, we all need a little help sometimes! Luckily for applicants, Charlie the chatbot is on-hand to instantly provide answers. And for the 3% of questions that Charlie couldn’t answer? They went straight to our applicant support – ensuring that the teams at our partner schools never have to moonlight as IT support.

Over 91% of applicants who left feedback on support rated their experience as "Great", given the options of "Great", "Okay", and "Not Good".

A small but mighty 1% increase from last year’s report, we’re proud to share that applicants are continuing to have such positive experiences interacting with our support team at Kira.

By the comments

Here at Kira, we stand by the knowledge that numbers can't capture a whole story. Here's what applicants had to say in their own words...

Applicants loved the seamless and professional experience with Kira

The most popular feedback we received this year focused on the overall ease and professionalism that the Kira experience offered. Compared to the complicated link-juggling and impersonal interfaces they encountered in other admissions processes, applicants felt that the personalization and professionalism offered by the Kira platform helped our partner schools stand out.

“This was an excellent interview experience. Everything worked perfectly. It was basically the same as an in-person MMI. I definitely recommend this interview platform for future medical school interviews.”

Looking to conduct a virtual MMI? Discover how Kira makes it convenient for your team

“It's like everything was done for me and all I had to do was click start.”

“Very user-friendly, great design and I liked that actual humans ask us the questions through video.”

“Efficient and reliable. The structured approach allowed me to concentrate on the question at hand rather than the technicality of the app.”

"I think the platform is wonderfully designed and very easy to use! I really like that the practice questions are available so people can get a handle of how the actual interview will run.”

Hands-on support was there to help applicants, and they noticed

“Kira Talent customer service is definitely the best. I was able to get immediate responses to my emails and they helped me out very much. I am looking forward to using Kira Talent in the future as well! Thank you :)”

“Great support team, got back to me as soon as I had a question!”

With Kira, applicants are fully supported throughout their interview or assessment without putting the onus on admin teams.

Some applicants wanted a little more time...

“The questions are very interesting, but I really hoped that we could have more time to deliver our answer, as some questions are very complicated and can be answered from different perspectives.”

“I would recommend a little more preparation time so the responder has more time to organize their thoughts. An increase from 30 seconds to 45 or even a minute would be helpful.”

Kira’s fully customizable platform gives your team creative control — which includes deciding how much prep and response time your applicants will get. To find the best fit for you and your applicants, we always share their anonymized feedback so you and your dedicated Customer Success Manager can optimize any and all parts of your process as needed.