Recruiter’s Guide: How To Schedule an Interview

Interview scheduling is often the first point of contact employers have with candidates, and it’s crucial to creating a great candidate experience from the start. With the right process, you can streamline scheduling to make it simpler for the hiring team and candidates.

Unfortunately, scheduling an interview can be more complex than it seems, becoming a time suck for recruiters. This article explores how to schedule an interview, offering suggestions for best practices, templates, and technology to streamline the process.

What is Interview Scheduling?

Interview scheduling is the process by which recruiters, talent acquisition specialists, or HR coordinators arrange interviews between candidates and hiring team members. Depending on the role and an organization’s hiring process, scheduling interviews will take place multiple times throughout a candidate’s journey.

From initial screenings to follow-up interviews, interview scheduling can involve a lot of back-and-forth coordination and communication, especially if multiple time zones are involved. Simplifying (and automating) the process will enhance candidate experience and improve internal stakeholder satisfaction with recruiting and hiring efforts.

How To Schedule an Interview with a Candidate

Step 1: Plan Your Interview Process

Before scheduling interviews, it’s highly recommended to create a hiring plan for the job position,  providing a recruiter roadmap to answer questions and communicate details with candidates and interviewers.

In a structured interview process, the hiring team outlines every step before scheduling starts. In semi-structured or unstructured processes, planning occurs on the fly, which makes things more flexible. However, the less structured the process, the greater the risk that timelines get dragged out and the interview schedule becomes more challenging.

​​Ideally, every candidate should have the same experience before, during, and after interviews. While structured interviewing requires some work to set up, once it’s in place, it is easier to bring in new or different interviewers.  They can simply follow an interview guide and interview scorecard. 

Structured interviewing is also beneficial for interview scheduling because uniformity and predictability allow you to focus on optimizing every task, rather than wondering what comes next.

If you don’t intend to use a structured interview process, focus on planning the most important details:

• The number of interview rounds
• How long each interview should be
• What interview types will be involved (e.g., phone, one-way recorded interview, other live video interview, on-site interview)? 
• Who is attending or rating interviews, and what stage(s) will they be involved in (panel interview, one-on-one interview, etc.)?
• What candidates need to know or come prepared with for each stage

 

Step 2: Identify Internal Availability

How will you keep track of all your interviewers’ schedules so you can easily book interviews? Clarify your availability and any blackout periods to ensure scheduling interviews with candidates is as frictionless as possible. This step in the interview scheduling process is where time to hire can take a hit, so it’s a good place to focus energy on optimization.

Manual Interview Scheduling

Scheduling interviews manually can be tedious and time-consuming for recruiting and hiring teams, but here are a few tips:

Automated Interview Scheduling

With interview scheduling software, interviewers can connect their calendars, allowing recruiters to display available time slots for an individual interviewer or across all members of an interview panel. 

Candidates then self-schedule based on the available days and times. These tools also allow candidates to cancel or reschedule appointments up to a certain point in advance without needing to contact a recruiter or HR representative.

• Applicant tracking software (ATS): A robust ATS can automate most candidate interactions and coordination with internal hiring teams, including scheduling, reminders, and follow-ups. They provide the added benefit of being HR and recruitment-focused, as well as integrated with related systems.
• Stand-alone scheduling software: Alternatively, platforms such as Calendly, Acuity, or Chili Piper provide functionality to share availability, simplify group scheduling, and send confirmations and reminders to all parties involved. While lacking an HR/recruitment focus, they are often superior to manual alternatives.

Manual approaches to interview scheduling can be effective in smaller companies with lower hiring volumes. However, to drive efficiency within mid-sized or enterprise companies, introducing an ATS with customizable job workflows, shared interview calendars, hiring automations, and similar features becomes critical to keep pace with hiring needs.

Step 3: Send a Clear Schedule Interview Email in Advance

No matter what the details are, there are some core components all scheduling emails should contain.

Email template for scheduling an interview:

• Salutation
• The candidate’s name
• Company name
• Job title
• Type of interview and what to expect
• Rough length of the interview
• Details about the interview itself
  
  • Directions to the location and information about parking (for in-person or hybrid)
  • Link to the video interview with time and date boldly listed (for a recruiter-booked interview)
  • Link to the scheduling page (for self-schedule)
• Details about canceling or rescheduling
• Sign off
• Your name and role

Instead of calling candidates or sending a mass email, automate emails using personalized fields to reduce manual labor, while maintaining a personal feel to the communication.

Step 4: Lock in Interview Logistics

When some participants are in person and some are remote, scheduling interviews can pose a different challenge due to technical logistics and maintaining a consistent experience. If you’re using a hybrid arrangement, communicate the details or send the link to the candidate in advance, and troubleshoot your AV setup before the first interview.

There are a few different interview arrangements for hybrid interviewing:

If you conduct structured interviews, determine how to maintain consistency around the arrangement (who is calling in from where), rating, and recording interviews.

An ATS or interview management system (IMS) can save you time on interview scheduling by bringing everything together in one platform — interview guides, interview scorecards, interviewing software, and more.

Based on predetermined availability, some software can even automatically send materials to panel participants, such as profiles, resumes, interview guides, and directions. Everyone gets exactly what they need when they need it, so they can come prepared!

Six Interview Scheduling Best Practices

Set yourself up for success with these scheduling best practices.

1) Best Time to Schedule an Interview

Consider interviewer focus and energy levels when it comes to time of day, especially since these two things can significantly impact interview outcomes.

So, when is the best time for an interview? Mid-morning hiring slots are ideal because they allow people to settle into their workday and avoid being lethargic after lunch. Of the CFOs surveyed by Accountemps, 61% agreed the optimal time to conduct interviews is between 9:00 and 11:00 AM.

When is the worst time to schedule? Avoid booking meetings in the last hour of the day, when mental sharpness is at its lowest.

2) Best Day To Schedule Interviews

Yes, along with the time of day, days of the week should be considered. Even if you allow candidates to self-schedule, limit what days they can select if possible. Avoid Mondays and Fridays if possible, and stick to interviewing Tuesday through Thursday. That way, interviewers and interviewees have achieved momentum in the week, and everyone is more well-adjusted to perform.

3) How To Handle a No-Show

The only best practice to keep in mind regarding candidate no-shows is to keep your cool. It’s not personal.

Being stood up can be frustrating, but it’s important to allow candidates to explain themselves. Let some time pass (create a cutoff between 8-24 working hours after the scheduled time) and see if they reach out to explain or rebook. If they don’t, the ball is in your court.

Once the candidate has missed the time, there are a couple of options. You can follow up to ask if they are okay and offer them the opportunity to rebook, or send a rejection email and let them know you’re moving forward without them.

If they genuinely are a good candidate, and you are disappointed to reject them, you can always ask if they want you to keep their resume on file for future opportunities. Unfortunately, eliminating someone because they’ve ghosted isn’t uncommon — move on swiftly and focus on the candidates who did show up.

4) How To Reschedule an Interview

In a structured process, all candidates must interview with the same people, which means rescheduling a time might be required if the interviewer gets sick or held up with something else.

You don’t need to be specific, but let the candidate know that something came up so they remain interested. Explain that the same person interviews every candidate to keep things fair, and they are now unavailable to interview at the original time.

The rest of the message should focus on rebooking.

5) How Many Interviews To Schedule in One Day

Because most hiring managers are involved in hiring in addition to their regular duties, they can easily get overscheduled. Recruiters are also notoriously overscheduled. While it may keep the process moving, overscheduling can have serious drawbacks.

So, how many should you schedule in a day? There is no hard and fast answer because it depends. While there isn’t a specific number to keep in mind, it’s a bad idea to book a bunch of interviews back-to-back (especially if they are conducted by video).

Microsoft’s groundbreaking 2021 study about brain wave activity proved that back-to-back live virtual meetings are stressful. The antidote? Short breaks.

The best way to tackle this issue is by making short breaks between meetings mandatory.

6) How To Follow Up After a Scheduled Interview

The best practice is to follow up right away with a concise message. Thank the candidate for attending and set expectations around the next steps (for example, roughly when they can expect to find out if they are moving forward). The interviewer potentially mentioned these details in the meeting, but reiterating them never hurts.

Regardless of your decision on the candidate, closing the loop with every candidate is imperative, including:

• Post-interview thank yous
• Rejections
• Offer letters

Interview Scheduling Email Templates

Creating templates for scheduling interview emails and follow-ups will make the process more efficient and reduce arduous back-and-forth email exchanges that can take days to resolve. Here are a few examples to get you started.

Interview Details

• When?
• Where/how to join?
• With whom?
• Other information about the interview (e.g., topics, required documents)
• How to reschedule/cancel
• Add to calendar link

Five Common Mistakes in Interview Scheduling

Even experienced recruiters can run into issues when trying to schedule interviews efficiently. Here are some of the most common interview scheduling mistakes—and how to avoid them:

1. Overlooking interviewer availability: Failing to confirm time off, vacations, or workload limits before scheduling can lead to last-minute cancellations. Always check calendars and ask for blackout dates before sending out a interview scheduling email to a candidate.
2. Lack of structure: Without a consistent interview schedule template or process, interviews can become disorganized or inconsistent across candidates, which risks compliance issues and delays in hiring.
3. Scheduling too many interviews in one day: Back-to-back interviews, especially over video, can cause decision fatigue and negatively affect candidate evaluations. Build in short breaks and consider the cognitive load on interviewers.
4. Poor communication: Vague or incomplete interview scheduling emails confuse candidates and increase no-show rates. Every invitation should include clear time, date, location or link, and rescheduling instructions.
5. Not using automation: Relying solely on manual scheduling creates unnecessary back-and-forth. Leveraging scheduling tools—especially ones integrated with your applicant tracking system—can streamline the process and reduce errors.

Avoiding these pitfalls can significantly improve the candidate experience, reduce your time-to-hire, and make your interview scheduling process more efficient overall.