Elevating Recruiting: How to Optimize Your Interview Scheduling Emails

Do you want to recruit the best talents in your industry in the easiest way possible? If you receive hundreds of applications for a single job post, similar problems may keep coming up during the interview process.

The best candidates reject your offer. Your proposal doesn’t stand out from others, and you find it challenging to communicate with your interviewees. Well, you’re not alone, but there’s a way to improve your interview scheduling emails.

Read on to learn more about this automation software bound to make your recruitment process a breeze.

What are Interview Scheduling Emails?

Interview scheduling is the process recruiters go through to bring in the best candidates for a job position/s. It’s not a single task but rather involves sending meeting invitations. Besides, it includes managing calendars, fixing a venue, and finally, scheduling an interview.

Interview scheduling emails are core to this process because they determine whether a candidate accepts or rejects your proposal. Typically, the best schedule emails include:

Job Position

The title is a crucial element of a scheduling email because it states the exact job the applicant is being interviewed for. This way, you avoid any misunderstandings during the actual interview.

Company Name and Interviewers

Candidates send hundreds of proposals for a specific position before they get a response. Thus, it would help to indicate your company name in plain to differentiate your company from a competitor, plus your name and all the interviewers who will be among them.

Interview Date and Topic Discussions

The interview date should come third after the company name. It should be convenient for both you (the recruiter) and the interviewee to avoid back and forth rescheduling. Beneath it should be topics covered during the meeting and what the candidate requires for preparation.

Location

The venue is the last piece of information to include as a guide for the candidate. If there are specific transit instructions, be sure to add them here as well as the office address. At the least, include a link to an online map to download via phone.

Best Practices When Scheduling Interviews

Job candidates want to be part of an organization that cares about their welfare, reflecting right from the interviewing process. Incorporate these best practices to attract and keep the best talents:

Respond to the Best Resumes Immediately

Some resumes stand out from all the others in the applications. If you come across a good resume, make sure to contact the individual immediately before other firms interview them.

If you don’t do an actual interview, share more about the opportunity and schedule a follow-up interview. This way, they’ll be alert, interested in the offer.

Have a Standard Interview

Every candidate must be subject to a fair interviewing process. So, creating a structured interview with standardized questions is essential to even scale for all candidates.

An interview kit is the backbone of a well-structured interview. Through it, you can hold all candidates in the same regard and ensure other interviewers stick to the purpose of the interview.

The kit should include a mix of questions to ask, an interview schedule, skill scorecards, and interview deal-breakers.

Be Responsive

While you may be busy with HR responsibilities, always find time to respond to job candidates. This is because most employees call or email many times requiring clarification, guidance, or to share their concerns.

Furthermore, some candidates may need to reschedule the interview and may want to pass it by you to reschedule.

Collect Feedback

The process of collecting and giving feedback is as essential as any when scheduling interview emails. After each interview, compile each candidate’s feedback before you can forget, move on to other candidates, or become distracted.

Automating the feedback collection process is the best solution. This is because most interviewers forget to note the feedback immediately. Here, ATS software installed prompts the interviewer to record feedback before proceeding with other candidates.

Review the Interview Process

The secret to scheduling successful interviews is to improve them every chance you get. So, after a while, keep reviewing your intervening process and finding ways to improve it for all parties involved.

If there’s a gap in giving and gathering feedback or time management, get systems to fill these voids. In the end, you’ll have a much smoother interviewing process that all top candidates and interviewers enjoy, which brings us to the next point.

Key Features of Interview Scheduling Software

Manually scheduling interviews is a long and tedious process, which may yield little fruit. But through automation, the recruitment process can improve in the following ways:

Calendar Integration

A common problem facing interviewers and interviewees is contrasting schedules. When you (the hiring manager) are available, the candidates are busy and vice-versa. Managing calendars manually means having conflicting schedules. And thus, interviews may keep postponing, and the chance to recruit the best talents passes by.

Not with automation software, though. This system integrates with popular apps such as Facebook, Google calendar, and office 365. It allows interviewers to check their schedules and book their appointments directly when free.

Just place the link on your website or social media pages where applicants can find it.

Multiple Interviews

Some positions in an organization need thorough vetting before anyone can take over. This involves a series of interviews instead of the conventional one to two, including phone screening, technical tests, written tests, and culture rounds.

Automation software allows you to schedule many interviews with different interviewers at once. This way, you reduce the time spent interviewing an individual for a single position that may have many prospects.

Plus, you won’t need a big team to conduct interviews so other recruiters can focus on other productive activities.

Appointment Notifications

Recruiters have a hard time communicating at each step during the interviewing process. So, if an interview is rescheduled, they must ensure this information reaches the candidates, hiring managers, interviewers, and other stakeholders involved.

One of the main features of automation is that it facilitates effective communication across all channels. Just configure the software to read whom you want the notification to reach and send an email notification with a link embedded.

Interviewer Feedback

Many interviewers forget to give feedback after each interview before proceeding to the next. This brings a lot of confusion because once an interview is over and another begins, the details of the former become a blur.

This software reminds interviewers to write down feedback immediately after an interview is through. Interviewers can record their feedback directly on the system by rating candidate skills on scorecards, leaving comments and observations, plus their hiring verdict.

This way, other recruiters in the hiring process can have a rough idea of each individual’s capabilities and weaknesses.

Self-Scheduled Interviews

In the past, a recruiter could have had a challenge getting all parties involved in the interviewing process in one room. They had to send out emails to all stakeholders requesting a suitable time to conduct the interviews.

Automation tools allow interviewers to identify time slots available, allowing candidates can choose that which suits them. Then, once the schedule is ready, configure it to notify both the candidates and the recruiters to avoid disappointments.

Ways of Improving Interview Scheduling Emails

If you’re tired of losing out the best candidates to your competitors, optimizing your interview scheduling emails will help you get an edge. Just make sure to apply the following for a smooth interviewing experience:

Make Application Easy

Interviewees hate a lengthy and cumbersome application process so much that 60% of them quit halfway through the process. Asking too many or complex questions on the application email is one of the reasons behind this.

So, instead, keep the process straightforward such that the questions do not exceed 50. Also, ensure the application doesn’t take more than five minutes. Leave the tough questions for the actual interview.

Have Clear Job Descriptions

Many times recruiters make the mistake of not indicating the job details through their emails. As a result, while they still get someone to fill the position, the preferred candidate is often a skill short or doesn’t have the desire for the job.

Thus, ensure the job description is up-to-date and all the information about the position is present. If there’s an employee in that role, consult with them to know whether all the responsibilities are included. This way, you avoid repeating the entire hiring process all over again.

Educate Candidates

Prospective candidates are always curious to know more about the company they’re potentially going to work for. So, typically, they have many questions about your organization during the interview.

Boost your chances of landing the best candidates by answering their questions even before asking through the interview scheduling emails. Talk about the company mission, vision, culture, and benefits packages as these are some of the burning questions job candidates have.

Schedule Subsequent Interview

When sending interview emails, be careful not to give out or request too much information from the candidate at once. Discussing sensitive details about the job post in length from the go can be a deal-breaker.

Do your first interview about introducing your company or brand. Then, get to know specific times when the candidate may be available for a more detailed interview. This could be through remote phone interviews or videos provided you:

• Be in a distraction-free environment
• Set a clear schedule and agenda
• Plan how you’ll take notes
• Make time for small talk

Benefits of Using Software when Scheduling Interviews

Automating your interview scheduling emails isn’t all in vain. These benefits are proof that software can improve your recruitment process:

Competitive Advantage

With people quitting their jobs at a record high, you need a competitive edge over your rivals to keep the best talents.

Nothing proves your competency more than a streamlined interviewing process. It shows you go above and beyond to give the same level of service to your employees.

And for this reason, they’re likely to apply again even if they fail the first time since they enjoyed the experience. They may also refer other qualified peers.

Cut Costs

The hiring process is a crucial part of any organization and should have enough budget. But, as a savvy entrepreneur, you always want to save a dollar or two whenever you can.

Hiring can be pretty expensive, especially doing it manually. This is because you may make mistakes, hire the wrong candidate, and repeat the process repeatedly.

An automated appointment system ensures applicants who don’t qualify get out during the initial stages, so you’re left with the best.

This way, you fill the vacant position quickly without extra costs.

Longer Employee Retention

A disorganized recruitment process is unattractive and leaves a wrong impression on suitable candidates. In contrast, the opposite is also true. Like how you dress to kill during your first date, automation software gets the attention of a potential employee during an interview.

The smoother a candidate’s experience is during interviews, the higher their engagement and chances of becoming a core part of your team long term. This means you don’t have to replace employees due to consistent vacant positions in your organization.

Builds Trust

Trust is an essential component between an employer and their employees. If your employees trust you, they become more committed to its mission, vision, and culture.

A manual interview process signals that candidates can’t trust your organization to deliver in the market. But a streamlined system shows you’re committed to keeping up with changes and thus compete.

Optimize your Interview Scheduling Emails

There’s nothing wrong with manual recruitment, only that it’s a long and tedious process, not to mention costly.

If you have a small business hiring, automating the interviewing cycle could help you recruit the best talents for any position.

If you’d like appointment booking software to help ease interview scheduling emails, reach out to us, and we’ll help you get started.