The Procedure for Scheduling a Video conference Interview

The Procedure for Scheduling a Videoconference Interview

• The processing office will typically send an e-mail to the contact person in the host location and their back-up (if applicable)
• The e-mail would typically contain information such as:
• The applicant’s Unique Client Identification (UCI) number
• The applicant’s name
• The interviewer’s name
• The type of interview
• The length of the interview and,
• The preferred week of the interview
• The contact person would need to confirm the availability of the room within 72 hours following receipt of the e-mail
• Situations might arise where the preferred week is not available
• In this scenario, the contact person would need to call or e-mail the interviewer for discussing other possible availabilities
• Each office would need to reserve their respective rooms
• The officers would also need to ensure that the applicant has not identified “Special Needs” that could hinder the applicant’s ability to participate in a video conference interview
• The contact person would need to schedule the appointment once both the offices agree to an interview date and time
• For this, the contact person would need to use the calendar function available in MS-Outlook with the following details:
• To: Interviewer, Greeter, Judge (as appropriate), Video conference interview room
• Subject: Type of interview and the interviewer’s name
• Location: The video conference interview locations
• The start and end times
• In the body of the e-mail, the contact person would need to specify the following details:
• The type of interview
• The date and time of the interview (if the interviewer and the host office are located in different time zones, the contact person would need to specify the time zones as well)
• The applicant’s name and,
• The applicant’s Unique Client Identification (UCI) number
• Upon scheduling the video conference appointment in MS-Outlook, the interviewer would need to send an invitation to the applicant that:
• Clearly specifies that the interview will be a video conference interview
• Indicates the location of the interview and,
• Instructs the applicant to arrive 15 minutes prior to the scheduled time of the interview
• Situations could arise where the officers want the applicant to provide certain supporting documentation
• In this scenario, the invitation would also need to provide sufficient time for the applicant to mail, e-mail or fax the documents (as appropriate) to the interviewer
• In addition, the invitation must provide instructions to the applicant for sending these documents over to the interviewer
• It is worth noting that there is no legal requirement for obtaining written consent from the applicant for conducting a video conference interview
• However, officers would always need to have a signed consent form for citizenship video conference hearings
• For more details on this, officers would need to refer to Appendix E
• For interviewing refugees or citizenship applicants, the officers would need to consult the website of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) for obtaining more details on consulting interviews for specific case types
• The officers would need to ask the interpreter to attend the host Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) location
• This is especially so in case Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) is paying for an interpreter to be present
• The processing office holds all responsibility for the cost of the interpreter
• In the citizenship program, the officers would only be able to arrange for sign-language interpretation
• The costs for this would be borne by the processing office as well

The Procedure for No-Shows

Situations might arise where the applicant does not appear for the interview. In this scenario, the officers would need to treat the case as a no-show. It is worth noting that officers would need to avoid scheduling previous no-shows for a videoconference interview.

Source: Citizenship and Immigration