Automated scheduling helps you schedule faster and more accurately by automatically identifying the best available times for interviews. Instead of manually scanning calendars, you’ll get a list of suggestions that account for interviewer availability, candidate preferences, and your team's working hours.
Using automated scheduling
Your calendar must first be connected to your Greenhouse account before we can generate suggestions.
Use the primary email for the calendar you want to connect. Greenhouse can’t pull events from email aliases or subaddresses.
Once your calendar is connected, you can edit its default settings while you're scheduling the interview.
You can schedule an individual interview by clicking Automated scheduling in places such as the candidate profile and the All Candidates page. In a multi-interview stage, you can schedule multiple interviews quickly by clicking Schedule All, then Automated scheduling.
The left panel on the screen includes interview information, like the interviewer's name, candidate information, and resources. Suggestions will be generated in the main panel.
You can add an interviewer in one of three ways:
Add interviewer from group: Select the group you'd like to pull an interviewer from.
- Add interviewer by name: Start typing in the text field to search for and select a specific person.
Add interviewer by hiring team role: If multiple people are assigned to that role, we’ll automatically choose one, based on how the role was configured during job setup.
If the interview you're scheduling is using default interviewers, suggestions will appear automatically. However, if there are no default interviewers, select them from the left panel and select Save changes.
If you'd like to use the calendar to find time yourself, select the Find time manually button.
After selecting Find Time Manually, you'll be taken to a calendar interface where you can choose a time for the interview. Keep in mind that any interviewers previously added by group or Hiring Team role will need to be re-added by name using the left-hand panel. Some features, like interviewer groups, aren’t supported when scheduling interviews manually.
Panel interviews can be scheduled over one day, or over multiple days.
If an interview plan is already set up, suggestions will be generated automatically.
You can confirm the schedule suggested by Greenhouse by selecting the View in calendar button. Select Customize details to configure the calendar invitations and finish scheduling.
Send the interview invitations
The Send Calendar Invite to Interviewers page allows you to configure interviewer invites and add any video interviewing options.
Note: Interview times selected in the previous step are not sent to the interviewers' calendars until the steps below are completed. If you exit the scheduling process before sending the invites, the interviews will not be scheduled.
The Schedule Summary panel on the right displays the finalized interview schedule. Add a Location and Video Conferencing in the right panel.
To use video interviews, your organization must have set up a video interviewing integration, such as Zoom.
If any of the interview details listed in the Schedule Summary panel require updating, click Back to suggestions at the top right to return to suggestions.
If you are scheduling multiple interviews, you can use the same email template for all calendar invites, or create individual invites for each interview. The option to Use the same email template for all interviews is selected by default.
You can customize invite emails manually or use an alternative template by unchecking the box next to Use the same email template for all interviews.
Note: Because the information populated by email tokens is unique to each interviewer, if you use the same email template for all interviewer invitations, email tokens will not be added in the interviewer invite preview, but will show up when the interviewer gets the email in their inbox.
When you're ready, click Send invites to interviewers. If you're using Google Calendar or Outlook to schedule your interviews, click Open in Google to send the interviewer invitation and complete the scheduling process.
The invitations are sent to the interviewer through their calendars. The scheduled interviews will appear on the candidate's profile shortly.
How automated scheduling works
Automated scheduling suggests interview times that avoid conflicts, align with the availability submitted by the candidate, and incorporate what we know about your team's availability. Suggestions are based on the following criteria:
- Suggested time slots fall within a scheduling window that starts tomorrow and extends 30 days out.
- If the candidate has submitted availability, suggestions will only include times within that range. Interviewers' working hours in Greenhouse are also respected. Suggestions will not include times outside those hours.
- When the scheduler’s calendar is connected and they have permission to view interviewer calendars, we avoid overlapping with any busy events, as marked by an interviewer's availability. Events marked as Available can be scheduled over.
- Interviewers who have limits set for the number of interviews they can participate in will still be suggested, but these suggestions will be shown lower on the list if better suggestions that do not set an interviewer over their limit are available.
Troubleshooting
Many issues that may arise using automated scheduling can be resolved by disconnecting your calendar from Greenhouse and reconnecting it. Follow the instructions for your integration here:
If you've selected an interviewer who is out of the office, you'll see an error when trying to generate suggestions. Replace the interviewer in the left panel, then select Check available times.
Additional resources
To learn more about scheduling in Greenhouse Recruiting, including details regarding specific calendar integrations and scheduling across time zones, see the following Support Center resources: