This is step 7 of 9 of the implementation module Recruiting.

This article explains how to set up different interview types in Personio, how to activate calendar invitations for internal interview participants, and how to link your company calendar with your Personio account.

What are the benefits?

Interview types: Interview types are used to give a better idea of which stage the candidate is in, and informs interviewers of the type of interview they will have.
Calendar invitations for internal participants: If you activate calendar invitations, you can ensure that internal participants will receive an email with an iCal calendar invite to the meeting once it is scheduled, so they don't forget about the interview.
Calendar integration via API: If you integrate your company calendar via API with Personio, you can directly check the availability of interview participants and meeting rooms, and create links to video calls directly while scheduling an interview in Personio. This also gives you the option to send smart scheduling links to candidates, so they can choose their preferred date and time from your calendar.

Step 1: Set up interview types

Similar to recruiting stages, you can create any number of interview types in Personio such as Phone Interviews, Personal Interviews, Assessment Centers, and so on. To set up interview types, follow these steps:

Go to Settings > Recruiting > Recruiting.
Select the Interviews tab. Under Interview types, enter the name of your new interview type, and click the plus icon to create all the types of interviews that you need in Personio.
To change the Sort order of your interview types, select the interview type you want to move to a different position.
Then click Edit next to that interview type, and insert your desired Sort order number. Then click Submit.

Step 2: Set up calendar invites for interviewers

To configure if interviewers should receive a calendar invite via email in addition to the appointment that is created within Personio, follow these steps:

Note
This setup is not necessary if you set up a calendar integration via API. However, if you work with an external recruiting agency (that does not have an email address belonging to your company’s domain, for example, john@headhunter.com) the checkbox should remain activated so that iCal invitations can be sent to these users.

1. Activate iCal invitations

First, go to Settings > Recruiting > Recruiting.
Select the Interviews tab, and next to Interview settings, click Edit.
Here, you can define whether employees who participate in interviews will also be sent a calendar invite via email. This invite would be sent via iCal.
Then click Save.

Tip
Since invitations for candidate interviews contain the candidate's personal data, the calendar appointment is, by default, set to unavailable and no further details are displayed. The interview host needs to set the interview time and date in their own email account to public so that interviewers can see it.

2. Integrate your external company calendar with Personio via iCal

Note
This step needs to be done by each employee individually.

Go to Calendars > Events Calendar and click Export.
Then select the Calendar type that you want to export, and the Department.
Tip To add interviews to your calendar, select Recruiting as Calendar type to export all Interviews, or My calendar, to export only interviews that you participate in.
Then click Generate link.
Click Copy to copy the generated iCal link and then insert it in your external company calendar.

Learn more about Exporting interviews to an external calendar via iCal.

Step 3 (optional): Set up a calendar integration

For better workflows and fewer errors while setting up interviews, we recommend integrating your company calendar with your Personio account via API using our Partner Cronofy.

This will allow you to:

check the availability of interview participants and meeting rooms while scheduling an interview, using the Find a time slot functionality;
create videoconferencing links for Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and GoToMeeting directly in Personio; or
provide candidates with a selection of available interview dates and times from your calendar using our Smart interview scheduling functionality.

Personio currently supports the integration with Google Apps, Microsoft Office 365, and Microsoft Exchange calendar applications. Learn more about Setting up the integration of your company calendar.

Note
The setup of the calendar integration can only be done by employees with administrator rights for your account. It also requires liaising with the administrator of your company calendar or IT.

Manage interviews

Refer to the following articles to understand the different ways in which interviews can be created and scheduled:

Next step

Congratulations 🎉
You are ready to move on and Create candidate evaluation forms to standardize the evaluation of candidates after an interview.

What can we help you with?

Set up interview types and invitations (Implementation)