Are interview scheduling delays costing you top talent?

The data doesn't lie. According to Cronofy’s latest Candidate Expectations Report, 42% of candidates reported leaving the recruitment process when it took too long to schedule an interview. Your scheduling speed isn’t just a metric for coordinators, it’s now a critical differentiator in winning top talent. But what can you do when waiting for free calendar slots is slowing you down?

Recruiters often get frustrated from calendar-blocking tactics by interviewers. Likewise, interviewers struggle with frequent interruptions from recruiters about availability, but finding adequate capacity for interviews boils down to establishing a trust system between both parties. Forcing a top-down process as an attempt to change interviewers’ behaviour only show promise in the short-term, further causing friction in the process and people involved.

Recognize that interviewers have primary responsibilities to fill and build a process that respects their productivity while enabling hiring success.

Even the best recruiters can’t fix poor calendar hygiene culture. Becoming calendar administrators is not what they signed up for. Every hour your recruiter navigating calendars is a missed opportunity to build relationships with hiring managers, or keep candidates engaged. In fact, 81% of candidates say they want more personal touch from recruiters, but where can they find the time if they're busy managing calendars? This misallocation of resource impacts your overall hiring experience.

The solution isn’t asking recruiters to get better with calendar management — it’s building systems and processes that eliminate the need for manual coordination altogether.

• Introduce availability status checkpoints to minimize adhoc check-ins: Go beyond one-off availability discussions in kickoff meetings, establish a routine where interviewers proactively update their calendars/availability status every 48 hours. Highlight that doing this avoids them being ambushed with unexpected invites and constant recruiter interruptions.
• Identify next best alternatives early on: Don’t wait for schedules to fall through to start scrambling for the next available person. Create interviewer pools that are 3 times your typical need ensuring you never lose momentum from a single conflict.

• Discover capacity gaps before they become critical: Use historical data to identify bottlenecks early on. In practice, if each candidate goes through 3 interview stages, you need at least 3 interview slots per candidate. But you must account for buffers especially with panel interviews where you need 2 or more people to be free at the same time. Spending time to identify where you are likely to get stuck before a process begins can save you headaches and delays down the line. Learn how TA teams are leveraging automation to identify availability bottlenecks in their interview process today.
• Optimize interviewer experience to get buy-in from busy interviewers: You are likely to find more capacity with busy interviewers when they see their participation as strategic and beyond duty. Use tools like Cronofy’s Interview Times to lock-in and maintain interview blocks that protect their productivity throughout hiring cycles, and where possible, use data to demonstrate why their participation is critical.

Success in this year's hiring landscape will belong to companies that can eliminate scheduling bottlenecks and build scalable processes that work for recruiters, interviewers, and candidates. If you're ready for change, we've got the session for you.

Want to learn best practice on managing interviewer availability from leading global teams? Don't miss our upcoming webinar. You'll get the latest on redefining interviewer availability management, allowing you to dramatically reduce time-to-hire without sacrificing hiring quality or burning out your team.