Scheduling Interviews with Applicants

Work with a team of schedulers or a scheduling tool to match SMEs with applicants for interviews.

Before you schedule training for SMEs conducting interviews, divide the SMEs into groups based on which interviews they will conduct (assuming you are doing two rounds of interviews). Consider how many applicants passed resume review, as well as any scheduling conflicts you may be aware of at this time. Send SMEs calendar invites for the days or weeks they’ll be conducting interviews as soon as possible. These invites should just be a placeholder notification of when interviews will generally take place. To solicit the specific times that SMEs will make available for interviews during this period, send them the SME Availability Email.

Complete and share the Scheduler Instructions with the people who will schedule applicants, and provide them with these materials:

• Applicant First Interview Scheduling Request, Applicant First Interview Scheduling Confirmation, Applicant Second Interview Scheduling Request, and Applicant Second Interview Scheduling Confirmation email templates
• SME Recusal Email Template

Schedulers may find the SME Availability Worksheet useful to track when SMEs are available to conduct interviews, and the Applicant Scheduling Worksheet for tracking which applicants have been scheduled for interviews.

Keep these ideas in mind:

• If there are multiple schedulers: You’ll need a shared scheduling email inbox where all emails between schedulers and applicants can be managed.
• If second interviews will be scheduled as soon as applicants move forward from their first interview: Alert schedulers with results of the first interview immediately so they can schedule the second interview. A cloud-based application like Google Docs or Microsoft Office 365 can ease this coordination of scheduling tasks between schedulers.