One of the biggest pain points in recruiting today is the interview scheduling process. It often ranks as the biggest complaint among recruiters and candidates. All that back and forth, multiple calendars, different time zones can be a headache to actually complete.
The actual process of scheduling candidates for interviews is important for two key reasons:
- Candidate Experience: By not having a simple and easy way to schedule an interview your candidates will notice. Today’s tech savvy generation expects a nearly one click experience to get on your calendar. Disappoint them at your own risk.
- Opportunity Cost: the time wasted in the scheduling process can be a detriment to recruiting. Speed is essential in today’s competitive job market. By dragging out scheduling you can lose a good candidate.
A slow or incompetent scheduling process can only lead to disaster. Just head to Glassdor to see those rants! Making scheduling painless should be a priority for your entire talent team including the hire manager. Thats why having interview scheduling software in place is the answer.
But before we dive into that, let’s talk about ways to improve that interview invitation.
Ways to improve your interview scheduling invite
- Be mindful of the time commitment required to interview. Realize that the candidate is missing their own work to interview. Check with them to see how much time they can devote to your interview rounds.
- Reminder them via text and email about who they’ll be meeting with, the time and address (if in person).
- Add directions your office inside the invite if necessary.
- Keep a tight schedule. Try to eliminate down time between interviews if they are happening in a single timeframe.
Lastly, get yourself some interview scheduling software to streamline, automates, and sync the entire interview scheduling process for all parties involved.
Platforms such as Cronofy say that automating interview scheduling saves recruiters 284 hours per year and results in a 59% faster time to hire ratio.
How to Choose Interview Scheduling Software
A host of interview scheduling tools exist today in the market. But what should you look for before making a commitment? Obviously you’ll want a full demo and perhaps a few client referrals. Below are some things to consider if you’re in the market for this kind of software;
Look for the following features;
- Automated Triggers: alert and invite candidates to self schedule themselves according to a calendar you set in place with certain interview times.
- Calendar Management: users should be able to update interview details at anytime, and see availability.
- Room Bookings: employers should be able to add physical meeting spaces to the app.
- Multiple Interview Types: the software should allow for group interviews as well as one-to-one.
Support is an essential piece of any HR technology. Be sure your vendor offers some form of live support (chat/phone) to assists you with questions. Ask about their onboarding prices as well. If they just promote it as a DIY solution you could run into problems.
Pricing generally involves how many employees you have. Many are subscription based (monthly) based on your company size.
The beauty of this kind of software is that your recruiters can send customized emails to candidates to self-schedule themselves. Recruiters can be direct, rather than engaging in frustrating back-and-forth email chains. Interview scheduling software can and should be part of your modern recruiting technology stack.
