Best Interview Scheduling Software - March 2021

The Best Interview Scheduling Tools, Pricing Information, Common Pitfalls and More

The many steps between sourcing candidates and making an offer can easily become a logistical nightmare, especially when you’re dealing with a high volume of applicants.  Modern scheduling tools allow for faster time to fill, a better candidate experience, and decreased recruiter headaches. Interview scheduling is a critical part of the hiring process with impacts to both the candidate and hiring team, yet one that can be the most prone to error.

Manual scheduling requires coordinating multiple schedules, sending countless emails back-and-forth, and juggling potential last-minute schedule changes. The process itself is antiquated, time-consuming, inefficient, and creates an inconsistent candidate experience. Some recruiters estimate that they spend up to 90% of their time on scheduling!  

We put together this guide after researching the various vendors in the automated interview scheduling space, and talking to recruiting teams about their experiences with these tools.  We hope you’ll find the list of best vendors helpful, along with the various advice we’ve outlined below on implementation best practices, questions to ask on demos, etc.  Good luck!

Have specific questions on HR tools? Join our free HR Tech community.

We spend hundreds of hours researching the best HR and recruiting software so you don’t have to.  We never take money from vendors during our research phase and rely heavily on practitioners and experts to help us recommend the right software.  However we may earn a small fee if you click on vendor links on this page. Learn more

We put in the effort to make this guide awesome

29
Hours Researched
2
Experts Consulted
18
Vendors Reviewed

Featured in

Top Automated Interview Scheduling Software

We track thousands of HRTech solutions, these are the best interview scheduling tools per our research and expert council as of March 2021.

Visit Website

Why we love it

:

Paradox

Review

Paradox is best known for their HR chatbot Olivia. While the bot can do many things, one of the core ways it drives value for recruiting teams is through scheduling candidates for interviews. While using Paradox solely for scheduling isn’t doing its full solution justice, it does belong on your radar as you look at various scheduling tools.

Paradox

Customers

Mcdonald’s, Unilever, Disney, Nestle, Aramark, CVS Health

Paradox

Stats

Paradox

Pricing:

The pricing of Paradox’s planning and services isn’t disclosed on their website. Contact their sales team to get a price quote according to the size and needs of your operation.

Get a quote

Best For

Companies looking for a recruiting platform with video interview scheduling and hosting capabilities.

Worth Checking Out:

Visit 
Paradox
 to learn more
Visit Website

Why we love it

:

XOR

Review

XOR has a robust automated scheduling offering and is generally thought of as a recruiting bot. Beyond screening candidates, answering candidates questions, and converting more applicants into the ATS, it can also handle scheduling.

XOR

Customers

Mars, Mcdonald’s, ExxonMobil, Manpower, Mol Group

XOR

Stats

  • 5m candidates created
  • 20+ fortune 500 clients
  • 100+ languages supported
  • 15+ client countries

XOR

Pricing:

The pricing of XOR’s planning and services isn’t disclosed on their website. Contact their sales team to get a price quote according to the size and needs of your operation.

Get a quote

Best For

Companies looking for a recruiting platform with scheduling and video interviewing capabilities.

Worth Checking Out:

Visit 
XOR
 to learn more

Calendly

Calendly

Visit Website

Why we love it

:

Chances are you’ve booked a meeting through Calendly before. While not recruiting-specific, this is a powerful solution that starts out with a free version. This makes it a great product for smaller teams looking to solve some of their candidate scheduling headaches.

Calendly

Customers

University of Georgia, Zendesk, LinkedIn, EMyth

Calendly

Stats

  • Calendly was founded in 2010.
  • Calendly has over 8,000,000 monthly users.

Calendly

Pricing

  • Basic: This plan is free of charge.
  • Premium: This plan costs $8 per user per month. ‍
  • Pro: This plan costs $12 per user per month.
Get a quote

Best For

Companies of all sizes looking for an affordable and user-friendly scheduling solution.

Worth Checking Out:

Visit 
Calendly
 to learn more

10to8

10to8

Visit Website

Why we love it

:

10to8 is another scheduling tool that happens to have interviews as part of their broader suite. That said, they integrate with Lever, Greenhouse, Workable, SmartRecruiters, etc. They also have a pretty comprehensive offering that is used by tens of thousands of companies.

10to8

Customers

Mercedes Benz, Expedia, Yale, ResMed, University of San Diego, NHS

10to8

Stats

  • 10to8 has been used by over 50,000 businesses.
  • 10to8 integrates with over 1,500 apps through Zapier.

10to8

Pricing

10to8 has five plans:

  • Small Business: This plan is free of charge.
  • Basic: This plan costs $9.6 per month.
  • Grow: This plan costs $20 per month.
  • Bigger Business: This plan costs $40 per month.‍
  • Enterprise: The pricing of this plan depends on the size and needs of your business.
Get a quote

Best For

Companies of all sizes looking for a scalable scheduling solution.

Worth Checking Out:

Visit 
10to8
 to learn more

Clara

Clara

Visit Website

Why we love it

:

Clara was recently acquired by TopFunnel, one of the sourcing offerings we feature on our site. Clara’s offering is specifically designed to schedule candidates for interviews. Give it the date, who needs to be there, and it’ll handle the rest, including last minute changes.

Clara

Customers

Experiment, Pinterest, Mattermark

Clara

Stats

Clara was established in 2014.

Clara

Pricing

  • Clara Essential: $99 per user per month
  • Clara Professional: $199 per user per month‍
  • Clara Executive: $399 per user per month
Get a quote

Best For

Companies looking for an intelligent scheduling solution.

Worth Checking Out:

Visit 
Clara
 to learn more

X.AI

X.AI

Visit Website

Why we love it

:

x.ai is another broader scheduling platform that has interview scheduling specific use cases, along with integrations with ATS’s like Greenhouse. They boast that 98% of the Fortune 100 has used their solution, along with companies like Dollar Shave Club and SurveyMonkey.

X.AI

Customers

Disney, Coca-Cola, Nike, Zendesk, TalentReef, StackChat, Stanford University

X.AI

Stats

  • x.ai was founded in 2014.
  • x.ai can connect to over 2,000 apps through Zapier.

X.AI

Pricing

  • Free: This plan is free of charge.
  • Individual: This plan costs $8 per month.‍
  • Team: This plan costs $12 per user per month.
Get a quote

Best For

Companies of all sizes as well as individuals looking for a free/affordable scheduling solution.

Worth Checking Out:

Visit 
X.AI
 to learn more

GoodTime

GoodTime

Visit Website

Why we love it

:

GoodTime is one of the few software solutions that has focused almost exclusively on interview scheduling software which has resulted in an amazing solution. Their platform does all the basics, plus interview training, analytics.

GoodTime

Customers

Airbnb, Dropbox, Zoom, Shopify, Twilio

GoodTime

Stats

Goodtime is used by over 200 companies.

GoodTime

Pricing

  • GoodTime Meet: This plan is free of charge and is ideal for small companies looking to get started with a scheduling tool.
  • Premium: This plan can be purchased by larger teams starting at $999 per month.‍
  • Enterprise: Per its name, this plan is made for enterprises with custom pricing that’s determined after an evaluation of your company’s needs.
Get a quote

Best For

Medium and large companies looking for a scheduling solution to complement their recruiting products.

Worth Checking Out:

Visit 
GoodTime
 to learn more

Looking for HR Tech Advice?  Join our community

Ask questions, share knowledge, find new job opportunities, network and more in our closed HR Tech Buyers Community

View Community

Interview Scheduling Software Key Use Cases

We think every company hiring more than a few people per year can benefit from adding interview scheduling software to the recruitment process, regardless of your HR/TA team’s structure, or organization’s size. That’s why we’ve done the research to save you time and help you pick the best solution for your company.

These solutions take a tedious, administrative task and automate it, allowing for more efficiency and productivity. Here are some of the core use cases for automated interview scheduling software:

  • Better Interviewers: Many platforms offer training modules that allow interviewers to gain the key skill sets they need to be more effective in vetting job seekers.  The right training means more consistency across your interview process.  This means a better candidate experience, and better hires.
  • Matching the right interviewers: Research has shown that who someone interviews with is just as important as what they talk about.  For example, if you have a female engineering candidate coming in, you’re going to want to match them with a female engineer interviewer, preferably early in the process.  This creates a better candidate experience which leads to higher offer acceptance rates.
  • Scheduling: Ok, this one is obvious, but these tools will actually schedule the interviews for you without any intervention on your part! Eliminating the wasted time spent going back and forth over email to schedule candidates for interviews means a shorter recruitment cycle. Your team can conduct more interviews in less time, getting you to the right candidate faster.

Common Pitfalls and Misconceptions about Interview Scheduling

While we strongly recommend automating the interview scheduling process, we’ve seen HR practitioners make mistakes in the process that can negate many of the benefits. Here are a few things to keep in mind to avoid:

  • Technology won't replace good human interactions. Yes, interview scheduling software makes the recruitment process much easier, but as with any tech, it’s not a complete replacement for your team members. The burden still rests on you to humanize the process and engage with your candidates in a way that lets them know that you value their time and interest in your company.  For example, don’t just send a calendar link to your prospective colleague asking them to setup a time to chat.  Sell them on working with your company by giving them materials they can look over in the meantime that dives into your employee value propositions.
  • Setting the right expectations for your candidates. Interview scheduling software contributes to a seamless candidate experience, but it’s up to you to let candidates know what to expect as they move through the hiring process.  People want to understand how long the process will be, how many steps there are, what you’re looking for, and of course why they should want this job in the first place.  Don’t fall into the trap of optimizing for efficiency and forgetting there is a human on the other side of that email.
  • Not just scheduling: A solution that can automate scheduling is great.  But you should be looking at tools that can do a lot more than that.  Let’s face it, unemployment is incredibly low and the war for talent is on.  Beyond that, you are probably in an organization that needs to hire the right people faster.  Leveraging interview training, interview matching (right interviewers for the right candidates), and interview analytics (who are your best interviewers) all contribute to a better hiring process.  Make sure to treat automation as simply the 1.0 implementation of this solution.

Return on Investment (ROI)

There are two major ways that these solutions drive tangible value that your CFO can appreciate.  First and foremost, you’re going to save your team time.  Scheduling becomes such a nightmare that many recruiting orgs have full time HR coordinators that are more or less focused on scheduling.  

Here’s the math: Let’s say you spend 1.5 hrs of time scheduling for each person who comes on site.  Let’s say your HR coordinator makes $50k/yr, or $25/hr.  Let’s say you hire 100 people per year, and interview 3 people for each person you hire.  Ok, so that’s 300 onsite interviews per year, and 300 * 1.5 = 450 hours spend scheduling.  At $25/hr, that’s $11k annually.  Add in the time it takes for phone screens/follow ups and you’re looking at a significant amount of money even for smaller companies, let alone large enterprise organizations.

The second way that interview scheduling software can drive meaningful value is through decreasing time to fill.  This happens in two main ways - one is that you are cutting down on the time it takes to go back and forth with scheduling and re-scheduling interviews.  The second is that you aren’t losing candidates due to frustration which of course means more hires faster.

The ROI can be calculated by thinking through how much an employee is worth to your business, and then figuring out how that value adds up when you are able to get people hired and ramped faster.  The value from an employee can come from new sales (sales/marketing colleagues), increased efficiency (engineering/ops), more customer retention (customer success), etc.

The easiest way to think about the value a person adds to the company is through a multiple of their salary.  If a person doesn’t bring value that is equal to their salary, then that person probably won’t have a job for very long.  And, if each person on average isn’t bringing value that is at least 2-3x their salary, there is almost no way that a company can be profitable!

Here’s the math: Let’s say again that we hire 100 people, and our average time to fill is 45 days.  Let’s say we can decrease that by 2 days with interview scheduling software.  That means in total we get those 100 people for an extra 2 days each, or 200 days in total.  What are those 200 days worth to us?  If each person makes $50k/yr, they make around $50k/365 = $137/day (yes I’m using 365 vs days working as let’s face it we are all working a lot more after hours than we used to).  Per our previous discussion, let’s say each person is worth 2x their salary to the organization.  So, that’s $137 * 2 =  $274/day in value.  $274/day times the 200 days that we got our new employees for, is $55k!

You can see how very quickly there is a hard ROI we can capture through implementing automated interview scheduling software.  Of course, the non-economic benefits are huge as well.  Scheduling can be a pain!  Taking this off your recruiter’s plates will be a welcome respite.

Click Here

Interview Scheduling Software Pricing

These solutions are typically priced on some metric that gets down to usage.  Some are priced based on the number of employees in your organization, number of hires, number of interviews, etc.  The guidelines in the chart below are meant to help you understand at a high level what you may be looking to pay at each size of company.

Interview Scheduling Software

Number of Employees

Estimated Annual Cost
100$5,000
1,000$20,000
10,000$50,000

Also note that as your company gets larger the needs for more customization, higher tiers of support, and integrations with other software (via API or otherwise) can also increase pricing.  

One last note, especially for the most basic use cases, some of these vendors have free personal plans that you can play around with as a minimum viable product to understand how this tool could fit into your broader talent acquisition team.

Key Features

Before you decide which interview scheduling software to purchase, you’ll want to consider a few of the key potential features.  Many of these shorten the length of the overall hiring process by reducing the time spent emailing back and forth, coordinating schedules, and time spent waiting for a response. Automation generally removes the costly errors that can result from small oversights like typos or time zone differences. These are the key features we’ve identified:

  • Automatic reminders. Reminders reduce no-shows. Depending on which software you choose, you’ll be able to customize these reminders based on the intervals, frequency, or messaging.  When customizing reminders, make sure to build in links to articles/posts/PDFs that showcase your employer brand.
  • Interviewer availability. Access to up-to-date calendars means more accurate interview scheduling the first time around and less time spent emailing to do it. With each platform you demo, you’ll also want to consider the types of interviews that you can schedule (one-on-one, group, round robin, etc.) and to choose the one that aligns with your organization’s talent acquisition process.
  • Device syncing. Calendar syncing across all devices should be standard, as well as a way to integrate with your current ATS.
  • Live support. No matter how intuitive the interview scheduling software may seem, a responsive customer support team should be available to help you troubleshoot problems as they arise.  One pro tip is that job seekers should also be able to get access to support if they need it (although it should be so dead simple from their perspective that this is fairly moot).

Demo Questions

As we mentioned earlier in this post, most interview scheduling software platforms offer free demos (with the exception being purely self serve tools best fitted for the smallest of recruiting teams).  To make the most of a demo, it’s important that you go into it with a game plan. We recommend preparing a list of questions, which might include the following:

  • Does this integrate with my ATS?  If not, do I have to manually input new applicants that I want to interview?
  • Can you walk me through the candidate experience?
  • Are recruiters sent follow ups if the interview is never scheduled?
  • What percentage of interviews get scheduled?
  • How do I train my recruiters on how to use this?
  • How much human involvement is there in the scheduling process?
  • What kinds of smart workflows are there around scheduling the “right” person/people on my team for a given candidate?
  • What interview training is built into the system for people on my team?
  • What is the average decrease in time to fill you see across your customer base?
  • How much time does this save the typical recruiter per month?
  • Are there any automated screening tools built in?
  • How can I showcase my employer brand through this tool?

Implementation Best Practices

Once you’ve completed your demos and selected which platform best suits your organization’s needs, the next step is implementation.  Here are a few best practices we’ve picked up on from talking to various HR practitioners.

  • Trigger Point:  The software you’ve chosen should integrate seamlessly with your current ATS.  Moving a candidate to the interview stage should automatically send them the appropriate communication and scheduling.  If there is no ATS integration, you’ll have to find another scalable way to get candidates into your system.  For the smallest teams, it may make sense to simply have a dedicated calendar link for each recruiter that you can send on a one-off basis to interviewees.
  • Recruiter/interviewer training: Schedule trainings with your team members to show them the features available to them with this new, time-saving solution. This ensures that everyone is on the same page when your new HR tool is rolled out.  One pro tip here is to explain the why behind the tool to get people onboard.  Namely, you’re going to save people time and headaches through this solution!

Interview Scheduling Software FAQs

What is interview scheduling software?

Interview scheduling software are tools designed to automate the interview scheduling process.

What features does interview scheduling software offer?

Interview scheduling software offers the following features:

  • Device syncing
  • Interviewer availability and calendar
  • Automatic reminders
  • Live support
  • Training modules
  • Automated scheduling
  • Interviewer matching

What are key uses cases for interview scheduling software?

Key use cases for interview scheduling software are:

  • Training better interviewers
  • Matching candidates with the right interviewer
  • Efficiently scheduling interviews

What ROI do you receive from interview scheduling software?

You’ll save time and money by using interview scheduling software. You can either measure this by time-to-fill, employee retention, increased efficiency, and employee value.

What pitfalls can occur when using interview scheduling software?

When using interview scheduling software, it’s important to note the following pitfalls:

  • Tech doesn’t replace human interaction. 
  • These tools are not just for interview scheduling, take advantage of all their functionality. 
  • Set the right expectation for candidates. Just because everything is automated does not mean you can let the tech do all the work with following up.
Best Interview Scheduling Software - March 2021
Paradox
XOR
X.AI
Clara
Calendly
10to8
GoodTime
Subscribe For Weekly Advice on the latest in HR Tech
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Last advice

At this point, you know everything you need to understand whether it’s a good idea to pursue video interview software to help automate your hiring process.  If you’ve come to the conclusion that this is something worth exploring, we recommend getting 2-3 demos from some of the top providers to start getting a deeper feel for how this fits into your strategy.  Remember to stay organized, and good luck!

Best Interview Scheduling Tools

If you want to be the smartest in the room when it comes to People, sign up for our weekly newsletter

The latest from our Blog

The 5 Best Trucking Payroll Software Vendors

These are the 5 best companies making payroll software for trucking companies...

June 8, 2021

HR Tech and Employee Mental Health

Here are some interesting ways to leverage your HR Tech stack to understand employee health...

June 3, 2021

How HR Software helps with your diversity, equity and inclusion strategy

Here’s a rundown of some of the key ways HR tools can help your team accomplish their DEI goals...

May 28, 2021
Thanks for signing up, we send our newsletter our each Wednesday at 10 AM ET!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form, please email us
SelectSoftware
Reviews
Made in Cambridge, MA
About Us

We spend all day researching the ever changing landscape of HR and recruiting software. Our buyer guides are meant to save you time and money as you look to buy new tools for your organization. Our hope is that our vendor shortlists and advice are a powerful supplement to your own research.

NAvigation
AboutHR Tech ROIHR Tech ConsultantsBest HR SoftwareVendorsContactPeople JobsWhiteboard WednesdaysPrivacy Policy
Popular HR Software
ATSVideo Interview SoftwareHR ChatbotsTalent SourcingEmployee EngagementTech AssessmentHR SoftwareHiring Assessment ToolsSearch
CONTACT INFO
Main Office

196 Broadway, Suite 200
Cambridge, MA 02139

Call Us

+1 (319) 481 2578

Email Us

hello@selectsoftwarereviews.com