On average, it takes 22.9 days in the US for a complete job interview process. The processing speed in the UK sees no improvement, up to 27 days on average. Scheduling multiple and high-volume interviews can be a logistical nightmare, especially for businesses that are still doing it manually. A recruiting team can lose precious time running back and forth by sending emails and juggling different parties’ calendars. The time that would be more useful for forging a strong bond between a recruiter and candidates.

A modern recruiter’s solution for this problem comes in the form of an interview scheduling application. However, there are still businesses that are oblivious to their own need for such software. In this article, let’s go through some scenarios where a scheduling app can make a difference.

What Is Interview Scheduling Software?

For HR personnel, scheduling interviews and meetings can be a real pain. Manual interview arrangements with spreadsheets and post-it notes (yes, even if it is a note application) run a very high risk of messing up. In situations like this, a modern recruiting team calls for the help of interview scheduling applications. An interview scheduling software’s primary mission is to optimise and automate the scheduling process, supporting multiple or complex interviews such as back-to-back, panel, round-robin interviews, or an entire assessment day.

Do you have problems juggling multiple calendar applications such as Google Calendar or Calendly? Depending on your chosen solution, an interview scheduling app can synchronise different calendars on a single platform for management ease. Another common feature in a scheduling application is automatically reminding all stakeholders involved in approaching meetings. You can also check if your chosen solution provides the ability to set templates for email communications and reports. By removing the back-and-forth phone calls and emails, interview scheduling applications free up more time for a recruiting team and provide an elevated candidate experience.

When Should Your Company Adopt Interview Scheduling Software Over Traditional Scheduling Tools?

Use an Interview Scheduling App When Your Company Hires on a Large Scale

Deloitte, in the 2020 Facts and figures report, revealed that between 2019 and 2020, the global service network included 4624 individuals to their staff network. Manually scheduling interviews for only a fraction of that number of participants is already daunting enough.

An interview scheduling application brings autonomy to the scheduling process. The application provides a bird-eye view of all pending interviews for recruiters. Managing a calendar will feel like a breeze when you can see available and unavailable time slots all on the same page. A scheduling app can potentially be a competent middle-man between interviewers and candidates, directly forwarding scheduling or rescheduling emails to all stakeholders involved and updating the results to everyone’s calendar.

Use an Interview Scheduling App When Your Company Hires Through Events

Event recruiting comes with its challenges. You won’t be the only business at the event, as there will be a wide variety of competing companies. It can feel like an “Everyone for themselves” situation as businesses competing to attract prospective candidates. After these recruiting events, a recruiting team potentially has to process bundles of resumes from candidates flocking to your booth.

For companies that perform interviews at or right after the event or the day after the event, managing multiple interviews at short notice is not easy. So how can an interview scheduling tool solve this? Allowing companies to create different time slots beforehand will enable candidates to pick one that suits them the most. With each time slot taken, the app can update what is and is not available for other candidates, freeing up a recruiter’s precious time while giving the applicants the initiative to choose. Some interview management tools even allow users to set up a standard evaluation form to enable your event representatives to easily follow a format to conduct interviews on-site and log their evaluation of candidates.

Use an Interview Scheduling App When Your Company Wants to Attract Young Talents Z

Human Generations might share common characteristics, but they are never entirely the same. Similarly, no hiring strategy can work perfectly with candidates from multiple generations. Candidates of Generation Z grow up in the company of high-speed internet and smart devices. However, they still value physical interactions and building relationships. Gen Z candidates also have very high standards. No one likes to be kept waiting, but for Gen Z, this statement holds even more truth.

Candidates can always walk away from your business, either due to impatience or the appearance of a better offer. With an interview scheduling application, a recruiting team can minimise candidates’ chance of walking away while showing off their tech-savviness. The key benefits of owning an interview scheduling app are the amount of time it helps to speed up the process. With interviews now can be booked automatically and in an instance, recruiters can have more time to engage and form connections with candidates.

Use an Interview Scheduling App When Your Company Has an Urgent Position to Fill

Recruiting can feel like a race. From the risk of having your applicants whisked away by a competitor to deadlines set by your own business, saying recruiting is time-intensive can be an understatement. Being fast on your feet is also a sure-fire way to prevent candidates from ghosting. There are many reasons why a candidate would “ghost: you. However, it is clear that the longer you make an applicant wait, the higher the chance they would disappear on your radar. Features such as sending automatic schedule email or real-time calendar syncing, or automatic reminder will be your best friends when optimising the scheduling process. The time saved by using a scheduling app can be best used to establish a strong connection with your candidates and ease any anxiety or questions.

Companies That Benefited From an Interview Scheduling App

Sensata Technology

Sensata Technology is amongst the world’s main providers of power management solutions. In the 2019 recruiting season, Sensata’s campus recruitment team struggled to meet their KPI of hiring candidates for the company’s summer internship. The chief reason for their delays was the team’s manual approach to interview coordination.

Employing the help of an interview scheduling application, the Sensata recruiting team optimised their recruitment process. Automatically schedule bulk interviews and send personalised emails were some of the feats the team achieved with the app.

Zalando

Between 2016 and 2017, Zalando - a European e-commerce business headquartered in Berlin, detected a problem in their hiring process. Their talent coordinators were taking too long to schedule interviews. It took a Zalando recruiter up to 60 minutes to perform a reschedule.

Using an Ai-based interview scheduling software, this e-commerce company managed to turn the situation around and elevate its recruitment process. After applying the solution, It now takes 32 days for a company to finalise an offer. Previously, it could be as long as 52 days!

Conclusion

With the pandemic remaining a genuine international concern, businesses worldwide are ever cautious, continuing to freeze hire and reduce the size of their talent recruitment teams. However, hiring talents with a smaller group doesn’t have to be more difficult. If you encountered recruiting problems in any scenarios mentioned above, consider employing an interview scheduling application. It might completely change the way your team recruits. For readers who are eager to gain a headstart in the recruitment race, consider checking this article on how to elevate your Interview Scheduling Productivity!

Images used in this post: Freepik

This blog post originally appears on Rakuna's blog.