Candidate Schedule Based on Interviewers Availability
As an interview coordinator, when you create a candidate-managed interview schedule, you can select a setting called "Candidates schedule based on interviewers’ availability". The interviewers' availability from their Microsoft 365 calendar is used to automatically find times where all interviewers are available, instead of forcing interview coordinators to find times when interviewers are available.
When you select the "Candidates schedule based on interviewers’ availability" setting, you need to provide additional info to complete the configuration:
- Set the meeting duration.
- Select interviewers. You can select specific people, or Hiring Team members such as the hiring manager, recruiter, collaborator types.
- Set the interview visibility.
When you select the "Candidates schedule based on interviewers’ availability" setting, you can't add interview slots to the interview schedule. The application will only propose slots according to the interviewers' availability. However, you can still schedule ad-hoc interviews on such schedules.
To determine available interview slots, the interviewer's work hours and work week configuration in Microsoft 365 are considered and only slots during these work hours are proposed. If an interviewer doesn't have a Microsoft 365 Calendar account (where we consider the interviewer as always being available and we don't know the work hours for this interviewer), only slots between 6 AM and 9 PM are proposed. For interviewers with an Microsoft 365 Calendar account, there is no time restriction, only the work hours of the interviewer are considered.
For the interviewers' availability to be determined correctly, the time zone of the interviewers in HCM must be set to the same time zone used in Microsoft 365. Otherwise, the working hours configuration in Outlook won't be interpreted correctly by Oracle Recruiting.
The reminders functionality that you can configure on candidate-managed interview schedules will work when you select the "Candidates schedule based on interviewers’ availability" setting. Reminders can be sent to the interview schedule owner if there is no or limited slots to be proposed to candidates for the interviewers selected on the schedule.
Candidate Experience
When external or internal candidates are responding to an interview invite to self-schedule an interview, if the interview schedule is configured to use Microsoft 365 Calendar availability, the list of proposed time slots are based on the interviewer’s availability in their Microsoft 365 Calendar. The list of available time slots are calculated dynamically based on:
- The interviewer’s calendar status. A time slot is proposed only when all
interviewers are free. An interviewer is considered to be free if one of the
following criteria is met:
- There is no calendar event during the time slot's duration (start time + meeting duration).
- There is a calendar event during the time slot's duration (start time + meeting duration), but the status of the calendar event is set to Free.
- Interviewers are considered as being always available if they don’t have an Microsoft 365 Calendar account.
- The interviewer's work hours and work week configuration in Outlook. A time slot is proposed only if it fits within the work hours and work week of all interviewers.
If no time slots are available to be proposed to a candidate, a message is displayed inviting the candidate to contact the recruiter.
When a candidate self-schedules an interview, the schedule owner is the meeting organizer if no meeting host was selected (selecting a meeting host is only possible when using the Teams integration). If a meeting host is selected, this meeting host is the meeting organizer.
Overlapping Time Slots for Automated Scheduling
When candidates are scheduling interviews for a schedule that uses the automated scheduling (the "Candidates schedule based on interviewers' availability" setting is selected on the schedule), time slots with different start times are available to provide several choices to candidates. This means that overlapping time slots might be proposed to candidates. If the meeting duration is 30 minutes or less, the application will propose time slots with a start time interval matching the actual meeting duration.
| Meeting Duration | Examples of Proposed Time Slots |
|---|---|
| 15 minutes | 8AM, 8:15AM, 8:30AM, 8:45AM, etc. |
| 30 minutes | 8AM, 8:30AM, 9AM, 9:30AM, etc. |
If the meeting duration is 45 minutes or more (45 min, 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours, 6 hours, 8 hours, etc.), time slots with a start time interval of 30 minutes are available.
| Meeting Duration | Examples of Proposed Time Slots |
|---|---|
| 45 minutes | 8AM, 8:30AM, 9AM, 9:30AM, etc. |
| 1 hour | 8AM, 8:30AM, 9AM, 9:30AM, etc. |
| 2 hours | 8AM, 8:30AM, 9AM, 9:30AM, etc. |
Here’s are some examples.
Example 1: An interview schedule is configured with a meeting duration of 1 hour. The interviewer's calendar for a given day is completely booked with meetings, except for 1 block from 1:30PM to 2:30PM. For this day, one time slot is proposed to the candidate, from 1:30PM to 2:30PM.
Example 2: An interview schedule is configured with a meeting duration of 1 hour. The interviewer's calendar for a given day is completely free, and the interviewer's work day starts at 8AM. For this day, time slots are proposed to candidates, starting at 30 minutes intervals: 8AM, 8:30AM, 9AM, 9:30AM, 10AM, 10:30AM, and so on.
When a candidate schedules an interview using a proposed time slot, the application also ensures that two candidates don't select time slots overlapping each other. For example, if the meeting duration is 1 hour:
- Proposed time slots for candidate A are 8AM, 8:30AM, 9AM, 9:30AM, 10AM, 10:30AM
- Candidate A schedules interview at 8:30AM
- Proposed time slots for candidate B will be 9:30AM, 10AM, 10:30AM
The application also validates that the interviewers are still available for that time slot before scheduling the interview. This is to prevent having two candidates schedule an interview with the same interviewers at the same time. If a time slot is no longer available, the candidate will be asked to select a different time slot.