Configuring Interview Scheduling

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to configure candidate interview scheduling and attendance tracking.

Interview Scheduling

Hiring the right candidate often requires collaboration across the hiring team. SmartRecruiters offers a suite of interview scheduling features designed to streamline this process, making it easier to coordinate schedules, manage candidate communication, and track interview progress.

Whether you’re scheduling a one-on-one interview or a group session, SmartRecruiters provides the tools you need to efficiently manage your interview process. SmartRecruiters also simplifies scheduling with its intuitive Interview Scheduler.

Schedule an Individual Interview

Steps

Select a Candidate:
1. Navigate to the Jobs or People tab and find the candidate you want to interview.
2. Within their profile, go to the Interviews tab and select Schedule Interview.
Confirm the Interview Step:
1. Choose the appropriate interview stage from the dropdown menu. This step is determined by your hiring process. You can also make the interview invitation private, if needed.
  Note
  Private invitations can be especially useful when dealing with internal candidates who may want to ensure that people with access to their calendar cannot see that they are interviewing.
Set a Location or Format:
1. Specify whether the interview will be in-person or remote.
2. Select from options like the company address, phone interview, video interview, or other custom locations.
View Times Available for Booking:
1. The Hiring Team list displays all current members.
2. Select one or more members to compare their calendars (requires calendar integration) and find shared availability.
3. Choose from Day, Week, Work Week, or Month view types.
Select the Calendar to Create the Interview:
1. Click or click and drag on the calendar to create an interview block. An Interview Details page will appear.
Add or Edit Interview Details:
- Interview Type: Select a type from your list or enter a custom type.
- Event Title for Interviewers: Add a title to be displayed to your team.
- Start Date, Start Time, and Duration: Adjust as needed.
- Interviewers: Add any additional interviewers or participants.
- Rooms & Resources: Reserve rooms, projectors, or other resources (only available with calendar integration).
- Note: Enter a note to the interviewers, which will be added to their notes tab and the calendar description.
Add Additional Interview Segments (Optional):
1. Select the calendar to create additional interview blocks and input the details for multi-part interviews.
Review The Interview Summary:
1. Confirm the interview details in the Summary section.
2. Move interview blocks by clicking and dragging.
Add Messages to Candidates and Interviewers:
1. Select Add candidate message to select an email template or write a new email.
2. Add a message to the interviewers' invitations.
Complete Scheduling, Send & Monitor Invites:
1. Select Schedule to finalize the event and send invitations.
2. Monitor the invite status (Invite sent, Invite Accepted, Invite Declined) from the Interview tab on the candidate's application.
Example use case: The recruiter is on the phone with a candidate and wants to check the interviewer’s calendar while booking the interview (requires calendar integration).
Watch the video below for more details about scheduling interviews.
This video is for demonstration purposes. Any references made in this video to previous or later videos in this course (including titles, numbers, links, or sequence) may differ from the current course structure. Additionally, some functionalities shown may have evolved over time due to ongoing enhancements or business decisions.

Edit or Cancel an Interview

If you need to make changes or cancel an interview, follow these steps:

Steps

Navigate to the Interviews tab for the candidate and select Edit or Cancel.
Open Cancel Interview when canceling an interview.
Select Select template and choose a cancellation communication template from the dropdown list.
Manage cancellation templates from the Communication Templates menu, as needed.
Note
For multi-part interviews, the cancel option is disabled the day after the final interview segment. Interviews may be edited or canceled up to midnight the same day, but not after.
Watch the video below for more details about sending interview cancellations.
This video is for demonstration purposes. Any references made in this video to previous or later videos in this course (including titles, numbers, links, or sequence) may differ from the current course structure. Additionally, some functionalities shown may have evolved over time due to ongoing enhancements or business decisions.

Candidate No-Show Management

If a candidate doesn't attend a scheduled interview, the user can mark them as a No-Show. After the scheduled time has passed, a No-Show button will appear in the interview card. Selecting this button applies the No-Show label. This label can be used in Report Builder to track interview attendance and guide future improvements to reduce wasting interviewer time.

Addition of Interviewers Outside of the Hiring Team

You can add interviewers who are not part of the hiring team. These users will be labelled as Other and may have limited access to the candidate profile, depending on their permissions.

If you want to control what the user can view on the candidate profile or jobs list, add them to the hiring team and use the hiring team role configuration to set their permissions.

Additionally, when scheduling an interview, SmartRecruiters will automatically share the candidate’s application with all added interviewers who do not have the Review permission for that job application. This applies regardless of whether the interviewer is a member of the Hiring Team or outside of it. If an interviewer already has the Review permission, no additional sharing action will occur. To control what an interviewer can view or do on the candidate profile, ensure their hiring team role includes the appropriate permissions.

Summary

Select a candidate through the Jobs or People tabs to begin the scheduling process within their profile's Interviews tab.
Determine interview stages and formats, such as in-person, phone, or video, and use private invitations for sensitive internal candidate searches.
Compare calendars of hiring team members to find shared availability, which requires active calendar integration.
Modify or cancel scheduled interviews through the candidate's profile; however, be aware that multi-part interviews cannot be canceled after midnight on the day of the final segment.
Utilize "No-Show" management to label candidates who fail to attend, allowing for better tracking and reporting of attendance trends.
Involve external interviewers who are not on the hiring team; the system will automatically share necessary application details with them to facilitate the interview.

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