How to Use Scheduling Tools in HR & Recruitment

Do you struggle with finding the perfect time gap that suits your candidate, you, and whoever should attend the interview? You’re not alone. It is the biggest challenge that recruiters face when scheduling an interview.

As in several other industries, time becomes crucial when making a choice. Probably you have found yourself in a situation when you lost your candidate, as another company gave him an offer earlier than you. There is where they could gain by simply being faster.

To speed up the processes, you should analyze your time-to-hire statistics and look for space to make improvements. A common bottleneck in the recruitment process is interview scheduling.

How much time would you free if you automated the scheduling process?

Why should you use scheduling tools?

Scheduling your interviews can easily get streamlined. Even so, only half of the companies use a scheduling tool in their processes. If you still haven’t joined them, there are three arguments to consider. This solution is definitely worth your attention.

Saved time

Less time spent on scheduling interviews means more time dedicated to real business value tasks, like interviewing itself. It is not only about the productiveness of your recruiters but also their job satisfaction. When they can dedicate their time and efforts to challenging tasks, they will improve their skills and see the impact of their job. If you can save them any tedious duty, go for it.

Improved candidate experience

As we have already mentioned, the time-to-hire factor is essential for your candidates as well. Reducing the duration of your recruitment process will allow you to get more valuable hires. Think that 56% of recruiters say that they couldn’t make good hires due to lengthy hiring procedures. Also, the top talent is off the job market in only ten days. Your candidates care about finding a new position as quickly as possible.

There is one more bright side of providing your candidates with a scheduling tool. You empower them to choose the date at the moment that suits them the most and show that you care about making the job smoother.

Better cooperation

According to a survey led by Yello, 56% of companies have a dedicated person to schedule interviews: a task that could be automated. Opting for a tool instead of a job opening means that you can make the most of that person’s potential by assigning a task that brings higher business value.

This value is especially important when you manage a recruiters team. If you share a hiring calendar, the interviews scheduled via a tool can appear there. That is how your recruiters can either take the interviews according to their workload. Also, you can gain a more in-depth insight into how is the overall workflow and where can you find improvements.

How do they work?

Let’s have a look at how it works with Harmonizely. When you streamline it with a tool instead of managing it manually, all you have to do is to block out the times when you aren’t available (like fixed team meetings or hours dedicated to other duties) and generate an URL for your candidates.

As soon as they select a suitable date, you receive a notification in your inbox, and the meeting will appear on your dashboard. You can then add a private note that won’t be visible for your candidate.

When can you use them?

As no one knows your processes as you do, probably you’ll come up with more situations when the scheduling tool can help you out. We will mention the two most common: your day-to-day interview scheduling and hiring events.

Scheduling (and rescheduling) interviews

Calling to all your candidates to look up for the perfect interview moment isn’t scalable at all. It can get even messier when some candidates wish to reschedule their interviews: and the chances are that it happens in each and every recruitment process.

If you are responsible for international recruitment processes, the game gets harder as the time zones differ. Your scheduling tool will solve the problem by detecting the timezone used by your candidates and showing both you and them the right hour.

Hiring events

Job fairs, company stands on a university campus or workshops have a common goal: attract potential candidates. Usually, the recruiters have a small talk with candidates, gather their resume, emails or LinkedIn, and after the event proceed to analyze the documents and connect with the interesting profiles. That is for the basics.

Nevertheless, there is another strategy you can use. If you are able to pick up interesting candidates on the go, you can prepare a QR code or a link to your scheduling tool for them. In that way, you can schedule an interview on the spot.

How to choose the scheduling tool for HR?

When you check the possibilities on the market, you will find various scheduling tools available. To make your choice more comfortable, we listed out the most useful features for an HR scheduling tool. All of them you will find in Harmonizely.

CalDAV integration

This feature makes you sure that whatever calendar your candidates use, you’ll be able to synchronize with them. Most of the popular scheduling tools integrate only with Google Calendar, Outlook or iCloud. There is always a workaround to fix the issue, yet it needs a lot of time and hassle: and the main reason to use a CalDAV scheduling tool is to avoid such problems.

The less you have to do in order to set up a particular meeting, the better. With Harmonizely, sending out a scheduling link is all it takes. You can add the link to the email template or even to a landing page for your candidates if you have one. No more emails exchange or phone calls to set up and confirm the interview.

Rescheduling

Life is unpredictable and sometimes influences our plans heavily. That is why your scheduling tool should allow you to easily adjust your agenda to reality. Harmonizely lets both sides to reschedule the interview and send out notifications.

Timezone detection

This feature saves you trouble with the international recruitment process. Harmonizely will automatically show the hours according to the timezone of the user, so both you and your candidate will be on the same page.

Various types of meetings

If your recruitment process has multiple stages, you can set up different meeting types to suit your needs. That is how you can use one tool for scheduling phone scanning, on-site interviews or skill assessments.

You can adjust the duration, one-to-one vs various participants type, location and visible vs secret meeting type. The last one will be accessible only for participants with a unique link and won’t be displayed on your scheduling page.

Buffer time

Hurrying between various calls in a day doesn’t sound like a sustainable way of managing meetings. On the other hand, setting up some short breaks manually is time-consuming itself. The best solution is to use a scheduling tool that allows you to set up buffer time automatically. Think how much time do you need to switch from one candidate to another, fetch yourself a glass of water or do anything to ensure you are productive.

Private notes

It is the place to add anything that can be handy for the meeting. Don’t hesitate and put there whatever you need: you’ll be the only person that can view them.

Reminders

Have you ever got so focused on the tasks that you forgot about an incoming meeting? It can happen to anyone. That is why on Harmonizely, you can set up custom notifications, so they fit your way of working. A useful way of making the most out of this feature is to set up notifications before the meeting. Thanks to that, you can reduce no-shows.

Zapier integration

Let’s streamline the processes even further. Thanks to Zapier or Integromat integration, you can connect your scheduling tool and the applicant tracking system (ATS) of your choice. That is how you can have all the crucial data about your candidate in one place and avoid switching from tool to tool to remind yourself when a meeting took place.

Final thoughts

Automizing your hiring processes, e.g. with tools like logical reasoning test, can result in higher effectiveness. A good way to check if it works for you is to try it out with a simple process, like interview scheduling. Let Harmonizely show you its potential and take the hassle of scheduling out of your mind.

Take a look at our 14-day free trial period and let your recruiters focus on bringing value.