OpenSlot · Guides

Sending interview availability to candidates, faster

Interview coordination is where availability-by-email refuses to die. Booking links feel wrong for candidate outreach at many companies, panel interviews need several calendars intersected, and candidates are frequently in another timezone. So coordinators do it by hand, dozens of times a week.

The usual panel-scheduling grind

Open Scheduling Assistant with the hiring manager and two interviewers, scan for common gaps, convert everything to the candidate's timezone, type it into the outreach email, and hope nothing changed while you were typing. Multiply by every candidate in the pipeline.

The one-click version

In OpenSlot, add the panel members, set the timezone to the candidate's, choose "next 2 weeks," and set the shortest slot to your interview length (say, 60 minutes). The result is exactly what belongs in the email:

All times in US/Eastern
• Today 07/08
  03:30 PM - 04:00 PM
  05:00 PM - 05:30 PM
• Thursday 07/09
  09:30 AM - 10:30 AM
  12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
  02:30 PM - 03:00 PM

Because it reads live free/busy at the moment you generate it, the list reflects this morning's calendar changes. The Outlook add-in version inserts it straight into the compose window, which turns a ten-minute coordination task into about twenty seconds — per candidate.

Tips that prevent re-scheduling

Count tentative as busy (the default) so a half-committed interviewer doesn't sink a slot. Offer more times than you think necessary — candidates pick faster from eight options than three. And always state the timezone line that OpenSlot puts at the top; it's the single biggest source of interview no-shows.