This article explains how you can provide candidates with a selection of available interview dates and times from your calendar, to make it easier to find a time that suits both interviewer and candidate. Smart Interview Scheduling directly within Personio makes the process of scheduling interviews much more efficient.

This article will explain the following:

• How to set up your personal calendar availability
• How to send a smart scheduling link to a candidate

Note
This feature is only available if you have integrated your company calendar (Google Calendar, Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Exchange) with Personio. Learn how to Set up the Integration of Your Company Calendar.

Set up your Calendar Availability

The dates and times that are offered to a candidate, combine the availability in your external company calendar with the one you set up specifically for interviews in your Personal Settings in Personio. This way, you can decide to reserve specific days of the week for other tasks.

To configure your availability for interviews in your personal calendar, follow these steps:

1. Click on your profile picture in the top-right corner and select Personal Settings.
2. In the left menu, go to Calendar availability.
3. Then select your weekly availability.

Tip
Times marked in green are set as available. Times in white are set as unavailable. Click times marked in green to deselect, and click times marked in white to select. 

Note Public holidays that appear in your Personio Absence Calendar are not automatically blocked in your external company calendar. These need to be blocked manually. 

Send a Smart Scheduling link

To send a smart scheduling link to a candidate, follow these steps:

1. Go to Recruiting > Applications.
2. Enter the candidate's application and go to the Interviews tab.
3. Click Schedule Interview, select the interview type and the interviewers.
4. Then click Setup a scheduling link to set a range of dates within which the candidate can choose from, to set a duration for the interview, and to add some buffer times.
   
   

   Tip
   Buffer times ensure that interviews will not be scheduled back-to-back. This helps to avoid clashes and allows you some time between meetings to prepare and wrap up. 

5. Optional: you can select an email template under Automatic email confirmation, that will be sent to the candidate to confirm the interview details as soon as they picked a slot. If you don't have email templates, a default template will be sent to the candidate. 
   
   

   Note
   The language of the automatic email confirmation is determined by the position's default language and cannot be selected.

   
   
6. Then click Create link.
7. Configure the outstanding details such as Interview method, Room, Evaluation form, etc.
8. Once you are done, click Email candidate and select Insert scheduling link to insert the smart scheduling link into the email body.
   
   

   Tip
   You can also use the placeholder {{smart_interview_scheduling_link}} in your email templates to automatically insert the link in the interview invitation template. Learn how to Create Email Templates. 

   
   
9. Then click Send email. The interview status will show as Scheduling link sent.

When the candidate clicks on the link in the email, they will be presented with a list of days and time slots they can choose from.

To determine which time slots are offered to the candidate, the system combines the availability of all calendars (external calendar and Personio availability calendar) of all internal interview participants:

Note
Timezones do not update automatically. If there are no available slots, each participant will have to review their timezone in their calendar availability settings under Personal Settings > Calendar Availability.

Once they have selected a slot, a confirmation email will be sent to the candidate and all participants, and the status of the interview will change to Scheduled. The confirmation email will be sent in the default language that is configured for the position, and it cannot be customized.

If the candidate is not available for any of the times, they can select I can't do any of these days from the options in the smart scheduling link. The organizer will then receive a task on their Dashboard to resend a new link to the candidate.

Example

Recruiter Sabrina Smith wants to schedule an interview with the candidate Johanna Blume, and Leon Brink, the team lead of the position. Sabrina and Leon have both updated their availabilities in the calendar in their Personal settings.

1. Sabrina creates an interview in Johanna's application, adding Leon as a participant. She sets up a scheduling link, sets zoom as the Interview method, and clicks Email candidate.
2. She creates the email with the scheduling link, and sends it to Johanna.
   The Interview status will show as Scheduling link sent, Sabrina's status will show as Attending, and Johanna's and Leon's status will show as Awaiting response.
3. Johanna receives the email with the link, and selects May 12 at 11:30 for her interview.
4. Johanna, Sabrina, and Leon will now all receive the confirmation email for the interview, containing the link to the Zoom meeting, the link to the application in Personio (for Sabrina and Leon), and an ical attachment with the date and time.
5. Sabrina, Leon, and Johanna accept the ical attachment to add the interview to their calendar. 
   The Interview status will show as Scheduled, Sabrina's, Johanna's and Leon's status will show as Attending.
   
   

Best practices