Interview Scheduling – The Ups and Downs of Interview Planning

If you have one, single interview scheduled, you can arrange the interview, put it in your diary, they turn up, you conduct the interview and you can then make a decision afterwards. Simple! You then move on to the next one.

When you have many interviews, then that’s a different story. Who’s coming? When are they coming? How many can I fit in, in one day? How long will I need for taking notes? What if they cancel? What if they don’t turn up? Where do I keep my interview notes on each candidate?

Interview scheduling has always been one of the most frustrating and time consuming aspects of the recruitment process. It requires endless, repetitive tasks of getting availability from the candidate, and working out what times fit the interviewers’ schedules by trial-and-error.

If you have multiple different interviews to arrange for multiple different positions within your department(s), you need to be able to quickly schedule, track and plan your interviews, second interviews and final meetings.

Communication

Whilst, ultimately the candidates needs to impress you; you also need to impress the candidate with your communication and professionalism during the initial interview stages. Your communication needs to be quick, efficient and contain enough detailed information to allow the candidate to prepare and also even just arrive at the interview!

Your communication also needs to be professional and consistent for each and every candidate. Any further communication, including second interview requests needs to retain the same consistency through until the offer of employment.

Lack of proper planning and communication may indicate a lack of real interest in the candidate.

Scheduling

We all make errors. We are human after all. How do we know the candidate has received their interview letter? How do we know if the candidate has confirmed the appointment? Does the candidate know where to go or what to bring with them? Where do you go to see who is scheduled in for a specific day or week?

You have to have a quick and simple process of not only suggesting dates, but also to allow the candidate to accept and confirm their interview. This two way interaction is vital to a successful interview process.

You also need to consider scheduling the interviews so that you and the candidate get the most out of the interview:

• Avoid early morning meetings – the candidate may struggle to get to you in time.
• Avoid the last meeting of the day – both you and the candidate may be tired.
• Avoid back to back interviews – you need time to relax and prepare for the next interview.

Our Solution

Our Application Tracking Software and Interview Scheduling Tool allows you to create interview requests quickly and integrates with your online diary and Microsoft Outlook diary so you can review and plan your interviews effectively.

Our system provides you with the option to forward one or a choice of interview dates and times to one or multiple candidates, along with location and contact details.  This works on a first come first serve basis, therefore once a candidate has selected a slot, the time will then be un-available to all other candidates that have been invited to interview.

On acceptance of an interview, the system will generate email confirmation to both parties and the interview is added to your diary. Notification emails are sent out to both parties a day before the interview date.

You will also be reminded on the day of the interview, so there is no excuse in not turning up!

Interview Scheduling is just one area of our whole End to End Recruitment Solutions. Recruitive offer the complete recruitment process from Careers Websites, Application Tracking Software, Job Posting Distribution, Interview Scheduling, Onboarding Software, Media Buying, Social Media Marketing and ongoing Search Engine Optimisation and support.

Call Recruitive today for a consultation and discover how our end-to-end recruitment solution can put you one step ahead of the competition.