Rakuna's Pick: 9 Innovative Interview Scheduling Software - Essential Buyer's Guide for Modern Recruiters

Modern recruiters often face a great challenge: Huge amount of data needed to process during and after every recruiting campaign. As two-thirds of candidates expect to hear from recruiters within one week from the first interaction, recruiters have to capture and organize data in the right format and sort data out quickly and effectively.

If they fail to follow up in a timely manner, talented applicants may get put off and choose to go with another company. Recruiters may also miss out on qualified candidates when they are under the pressure of processing their extensive data quickly.

This challenge demands recruiters to enhance candidate experience by shortening the assessment and interview scheduling process. Thus, interview scheduling software becomes a great helpful tool for modern recruiters. Here is a round up of the best interview scheduling software for your reference.

What Makes Good Interview Scheduling Software?

Recruiters use interview scheduling solutions to schedule and organize interviews with potential candidates more efficiently. Thus, they will improve recruiters’ processing time, reduce administrative tasks, and enhance the overall candidate experience.

Candidates’ are usually very eager to schedule an interview. 84% of candidates plan their interviews within 24 hours after receiving the invitation.

30 Mind-Blowing Interview Statistics to Get You Going in 2021- LegalJobs

To respond and manage a large number of interview slots in such a short time, modern recruiting teams need a good scheduling solution. A good interview scheduling software enables its users to collaborate easily with co-workers and keep track of all past and future interviews in one place. This software can be a standalone product or a part of a comprehensive HR software.

What are the Essential Features of Interview Scheduling Software?

Whether your team is looking for a solution that helps with high-volume recruiting or handling multiple different events, it is always good to know what you are looking for in a solution. Consider these factors when selecting your interview scheduling software:

Core Features

• Calendar Management: Users can create or modify their calendars slot, and the solution can then update the updates acrossits system and notify associate parties such as team members or candidates if the updates affect them.Most solutions enable you to integrate with your calendar (Google Calendar or Outlook) and synchronizedata which helps with ease of interview scheduling and management.

• Different Types of Scheduling: Interview types such as Round Robin or Panel require the scheduling process to be much more diversethantraditional one-to-one interviews. If your team employs a variety of interview techniques,considerchecking the scheduling capability of your vendors to best suit your modus operandi.

• Device Synchronization: Your solution can ensure any device running its application is constantly synched and will be updatedwith the latest information if there are any changes.

• Automated Touches: To lower the chances of No-show from candidates or interviewers, your software should also have afeature to send out automated emails or texts, including confirmations and reminders to bothinterviewers and interviewees .

Some optional but great-to-have features include tracking candidate history, making reminders of post-event actions and follow-up activities. Creating a report or having a candidate evaluation form attached for interviewers to fill out and submit back to the recruiting team are excellent add-ons features

Trial runs

If your interview scheduling solution vendors allow trial periods, you should definitely take advantage of them. Using a trial version before making a purchase is a great way to compare and shortlist your options.

Supports and Resources

The quality of an interview scheduling solution also depends on the solution provider’s willingness to support the user base. A factor any recruiting team should consider before purchasing an interview scheduling software is how attentive and helpful the support team can be. A 24/7 support team is the best option to go for

Another form of support users should be on the lookout for is reading materials, guides, or tips on the provider’s website.

Who can Benefits from Using Interview Scheduling Software?

1. Hiring Coordinator or Manager: An Interview Scheduling Software will fasten your process and provides an all-in-one platform for fast responses and effective interview management.

2. Human Resources Department: The software can reduce the time spent on administrative tasks and back and forth communication. Thus, it optimizes team time and effort. Members of the HR Department can spend their time focusing on other important tasks such as improving candidate experience or brainstorming the next recruiting initiatives.

3. A wide variety of companies: For startups with few numbers of people in the HR Department, this software will be a great tool to improve your core team’s performance and your business. For SMEs companies, interview scheduling software is a simple yet effective tool to optimize the performance of the HR Department. Some of our suggesting software is released as a part of a comprehensive recruiting platform, which makes them suitable for big corporates with a need for a multi-functional software to control their system effectively.

Questions for Your Demo

Joining a demo is an integral part of the purchasing process. To have the best understanding of your chosen solution, a recruiting team should enter a demo knowing what questions you need to be resolved. Consider making these inquiries alongside common questions to your provider when you join a demo:

• Do you provide a training guide or support to help instruct new users?
• Does this solution have a branding option? How can I showcase my brand through your product?
• What form of task automation will be available to my team?
• How much time-to-hire can your solution help reduce across your userbase?
• Does the scheduling process require a lot of human involvement?
• Can you show us the visitors/candidates’ experience?
• Can you show us how your solution update across different devices?
• Is there any automated screening tool built into your solution?
• Can your product scale with our team if we expand or reduce our operation?

Top Best Interview Scheduling Software for Modern Recruiters

Modern recruiters need to be more data-driven and technology-fluent as a response to the increasing demand for effective data management and better candidate experience. If they want to attract the best candidates or navigate through huge amounts of data, they will have to consider applying several HR tools to boost the overall performance.

Interview scheduling software is one of those powerful tools for hiring managers. It is a hassle-free tool that can help recruiters and their co-workers to schedule interviews, track candidate experience, manage interviewers’ time effectively, and provide effective communication on time. Here is a list of the top 09 best scheduling software for modern HR to speed up the game:

Zoho Recruit

Zoho Recruit is a product of Zoho, and it is also known as one of the most popular all-in-one Applicant Tracking Systems. It has worked with various types of clients, including HR agencies, companies’ recruiters, and temporary workforce. The people behind Zoho Recruit believe that the needs of two businesses cannot be the same. Thus, they design the software with huge space for hiring solution customization, which will suit the needs of diverse clients.

The software provides a wide range of features, including candidate sourcing, candidate management, social media job postings, and automated workflow processes. Recruiters can access Zoho Recruit via its website or mobile application. The interview scheduling tool is a feature of Zoho Recruit’s Recruitment Management System.

Pros: Zoho’s interview scheduling tool is a part of one big and well-developed system. It provides not only essential features for a regular scheduling tool but also a reminder for its users. The system, Recruitment Management system, is reliable and can be customized.

Cons: Zoho Recruit’s product received several negative reviews on the bad support team and complex interface. Several users said that it was hard to use and pretty expensive compared to others.

Pricing: You can try it for free. After that, it will cost from $22.5/ user/ month for different sets of features.

Website: www.zoho.com

Rakuna

Rakuna is one of the best interview scheduling software with a user intuitive interface. It focuses on campus & event recruitment and has helped a wide range of customers from startups to large enterprises to attract millennials. Rakuna offers a wide variety of independent tools, including Event Management, Recruit App, and Recruiting CRM to recruiters to optimize their recruiting operation.

The interview scheduling tool is available as an independent tool, and it can also connect with other Rakuna’s software. It is available on Rakuna’ website and mobile application.  Pros: Rakuna’s Interview Scheduling provides essential features with a simple and user-friendly interface. You can easily track candidate history and log candidates’ evaluation.

Cons: There is no information for pricing on the website, so it may be inconvenient for people who are looking for information and evaluating alternatives.

Pricing: You can request a demo and connect with Rakuna’s support team for a pricing plan.

Website: www.rakuna.co

Workable

Another featured player in our best interview scheduling software list is Workable. Workable is a cloud-based recruitment app for businesses. It has worked with world-class partners, including LinkedIn, Indeed, and has supported the hiring activities of many leading companies and startups.

Workable focus on sourcing candidates. Therefore, its key features are social media recruitment, job posting, and advertising. It promises to help clients meet potential candidates and generate reports effortlessly. The interview scheduling tool is a built-in feature of Workable app.

Pros Workable offers essential features for interview scheduling management, including calendar integration and self-scheduling interview. It also has a great support system.

Cons: API integration feature may cause some troubles for its users. Some others said that it would not be suitable for large companies. The verification process is long, and the cost is pretty expensive.

Pricing: You can try it for free for 15 days. After that, the cost can be $99/job/month if you choose the ‘hiring as needed’ option, or customized based on your annual plan.

Website: www.workable.com

CakeHR

CakeHR promises to provide a complete HR solution for companies with different requirements. It offers a wide range of HR tools for a corporate, including performance management, shift schedule, leave management, and so on. Human Resources Department can use CakeHR’s tools for recruiting and tracking employees’ performance, from the beginning of the candidates’ journey to the end of employees’ time within the company.

CakeHR’s interview scheduling tool, which has the necessary features, is a part of Recruitment software.

Pros: CakeHR provides a complete HR solution, which is suitable for big companies and corporates. It also has a mobile application, which is available on both Android and iOS. The tools are well-developed, and it is probably a great product for enterprises, not startups or SMEs.

Cons: Recruitment software can only sync with Outlook Calendar at the moment, and thus, it may be inconvenient for people using Google Calendar. The mobile app is not user-friendly, and the product is considered to be expensive.

Pricing: The trial period is 14 trial days. The monthly plan is $145/employee/month, and the annual plane is $99/employee/month.

Website: www.cake.hr

iCIMS

iCIMS is an ATS designed for large enterprises. The company has operated for nearly 20 years. It has worked with big clients such as Canon, 7-eleven, Samsonite, or Tiffany and Co. The company offers an end-to-end product, including recruitment marketing, mobile engagement, job offer management, and onboarding.

The interview scheduling tool is a part of the iCIMS Talent Platform, which can be connected with other iCIMS software. Its Mobile Engagement feature will send a link to schedule time, which can be scheduled one-on-one or in bulk. It also uses recruiters’ chatbot to schedule interviews.

Pros: It has a friendly site to address customers’ questions and a great support team. It also provides a series of helpful video training guide and FAQs for its users. In the future, the company promises to utilize Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for better result.

Cons: The self-scheduling feature is available in the legacy scheduling tool only, and iCIMS has not had a plan to add it to the latest product. The interview management feature is not yet available, and the design is also not user-friendly. Users need to take many steps before being able to use it properly.

Pricing: iCIMS offers free demo. After the trial period, the pricing is unclear.

Website: www.icims.com

Recooty

Recooty is known as the easiest recruiting software. Its developers have simplified the process and optimized the interface for modern recruiters. Hiring managers can post jobs, review, manage, or schedule interviews easily with Recooty. The product also helps its clients to build a branded career page. Some people believe that it is a rising star however, only a few reviews are available for consideration.

Recooty’s interview scheduling tool is a part of its Applicant Tracking System. It has essential features, which send automated emails to candidates and coordinate interviews. However, this tool is only available in the Pro and Ultra package.

Pros: Recooty is simple and easy to use. It covers basic features, which is suitable for SMEs and startups.

Cons: Recooty does not have a mobile application, and thus, its users may feel inconvenient. Setting up a landing career page, which is an interesting feature of this company, unfortunately, may be daunting to someone with little technical experience. It may not be suitable for corporates with complex requirements.

Pricing: You can have 15 demo days with full features. After that, you can choose a suitable package. The Basic one offers only 3 job posts with limited features. The Pro and Ultra one are $19/user/month and $49/multiple users/month respectively, and you can save more with an annual plan.

Website: www.recooty.com

CATS

CATS is an applicant tracking system based in Minnesota. It offers an easy-to-use interface with essential features, which are suitable for small companies. It also has space for customization. The software allows its customers to customize workflow based on their requirements and create a career portal.

CATS’ Meeting Scheduler, its interview and meeting scheduling tool, is a part of its Communication sector. It has essential features and enables recruiters to share their availability with candidates to schedule easily. Interviewers can also set up office hours, customize meeting lengths, and buffer period to make sure that they can manage their time effectively.

Pros: It is user-friendly and offers pricing packages for both SMEs and large enterprises. Interviewers can set office hours, buffer period, and custom meeting lengths based on their availability and preference.

Cons: The Integration options are not helpful based on some recruiters’ reviews. It also does not have a mobile application and lack a reporting feature.

Pricing: You can try it for free. After the trial period, you can choose between Pro package ($89/user/month) and Premium package ($119/user/month). Meeting scheduler feature is available in both packages

Website: www.catsone.com

iSmartRecruit

iSmartRecruit provides staffing software and Applicant Tracking products to a wide variety of clients in many countries. It offers several interesting and special features such as visual pipeline, website integration, extensive customization, chrome extension, and client checker.

Interview Management, iSmartRecruit’s interview scheduling tool, has fundamental features including Candidate Management, Automated Emails, Feedback Management. It also set reminders, send notifications to users, and sync with Google Calendar.

Pros: It is easy to set up and manage meetings with Interview Management. The software also provides a collaborative working space and interview feedback management feature.

Cons: Its users believe that some cross-functionalities between the separate sections such as jobs, candidates, and pipeline are missing. The software is occasional buggy, and it does not have a mobile application.

Pricing: You can try it for free, but there is no information about other plans. Pricing seems to be based on your companies’ needs. It depends on whether your company wants to pay per ìnividual or pay for the whole company.

Website: www.ismartrecruit.com

SmartSearch

Smartsearch is a fully-integrated staffing and corporate HR software. The list of its clients includes several famous companies such as LinkedIn or Facebook. It offers HR solutions for both staffing agencies and corporates.

The interview scheduling tool is a feature of its TRACKsmart product. TRACKsmart allows its users to organize hiring process, automate task management, and track documentation and actions.

Pros: Smartsearch has a long history in the market and a good reputation. It has a lot of functionality and a great customer support team. The software’s basic functions are easy to use.

Cons: The user interface and user experience (UI/UX) can be improved. Customers need some time to learn and navigate through advanced functions. It is also inconvenient as the mobile application is not available.

Pricing: You can request a free demo. The price varies depending on your plan.

Website: www.aps2k.com.com

Wrapping Up

The list above is our best interview scheduling software with brief pros and cons analysis. There are many options, and you should choose the one which suits your situation, objectives, and resources.

Modern recruiters should consider using interview scheduling software to schedule interviews and avoid missing out or late follow-ups. This tool will help you to manage and communicate effectively, optimize your process, and spend more time on important tasks such as improving candidates experience.