How to create an interview, the ways a time gets agreed, what the candidate and the client receive, and how calendar sync, reminders and rescheduling work.
8 min readIn this video you'll see how an interview gets scheduled after you've submitted a candidate. Three people are involved: your client, your candidate, and you. You're the one with nothing to do.
It starts in your client's inbox. Your submission ends with one line of reply links.
They're off until you turn them on, for your whole agency or for one client.
Elena at Brightline clicks Pick a time, and confirms that she wants to meet Maya.
She lands on a calendar and chooses three times that suit her.
Then she clicks Send these times.
On your side, a notification tells you that Brightline wants to interview Maya, and the interview appears in your list, marked Awaiting Selection. You don't have to do anything.
Maya gets an email with Elena's times. She opens it and sees them in her own timezone. If none of the times work for her, Maya clicks Suggest other times and offers her own. Elena can answer the same way. They can go back and forth like this, and after five rounds PlacementFlow hands it to you.
Here, Maya chooses one, and clicks Confirm this time.
That's the moment the interview is booked. The video link is created. The event goes on your calendar.
Maya and Elena each get a confirmation with the link, and you get a notification. In your list, the interview now reads Scheduled. From here, reminders go out on their own, the day before and an hour before.
If you'd rather see the client's times before your candidate does, or arrange every interview yourself, you can set that for your whole agency or for a single client. That's the next video.
In the last video, your client picked the times and your candidate booked one, without you. That's the default. This video shows the two other ways: see your client's times before your candidate does, or arrange every interview yourself.
You decide where it applies. For your whole agency, it's in your agency settings, under How interviews get scheduled.
For one client, open their page and change Interview scheduling. Right below each one sits Reply links in submission emails, switched on here, as in the last video. Here, we set Brightline to You approve the client's times first.
Elena gets your submission for Ryan, and this time its link reads Suggest a few times. She clicks it, chooses three times,
and sends them.
But nothing reaches Ryan yet.
The interview waits for you, marked Needs you, on your Today page and in your list.
Open it, and Elena's times are there. Untick any that don't suit you, or click Add your own times.
If none of them work, Ask Brightline for other times sends Elena a link to propose new ones.
When you're happy, click Send to Ryan.
He gets an email, picks a time, and the interview books itself, just like before.
The third way is for clients you'd rather handle personally. Set Brightline to You arrange every interview.
Now the link in Elena's email reads Say yes.
She clicks it, confirms, and that's all she does. She's told you'll be in touch to arrange a time.
With reply links off, she simply replies to you, and you record her yes with Client is interested on the submission.
On your side, the interview appears marked Needs you, with a card that says Arrange a time.
Click Propose times, choose a few on the calendar,
and send them.
Daniel picks one, and it books itself.
Or click Request Availability, and Daniel sends you the times that suit him.
Whichever way you choose, the booking itself works the same: the video link, the event on your calendar, a confirmation for both sides, and reminders before the interview.
Next: scheduling an interview yourself, when there's no submission behind it.
Sometimes there's no submission to start from. The candidate replied to you directly, or the client called. Then you schedule the interview yourself, from one form.
Open Interviews & meetings, and click Create Interview.
First, who it's for. Pick the candidate, here Amara Nwosu, and the job. The job already knows its client, so there's nothing else to fill in.
Below, Email Elena Rossi at Brightline Systems the candidate's details is already ticked. Leave it, and Elena gets Amara's details from your mailbox when you create the interview. Click Preview to read it first, or untick it to send nothing.
The rest is set for you: a one-to-one video interview, sixty minutes. Change it only when this one is different.
Then, the times. Under How they get a time, Propose times is already chosen. Click a day, then a start time, and it joins your list.
Pick at least three, and up to five.
A small mark on a time means your own calendar is busy then. You can still offer it. The times are in your timezone, and Amara sees them in hers.
Click Create Interview.
The interview is in your list under No time yet, marked Awaiting Selection. Nothing is booked yet: Amara has an email with your times.
When she picks one, it books itself,
just like in the last two videos: the video link, the event on your calendar, and a confirmation for everyone.
If your booking page is on, you can choose Let the candidate pick a time instead, and she picks from your real free time.
Next: how to move or cancel an interview.
Elena wants to see Daniel again. Here's how round two gets set up, without typing anything twice.
When Elena chooses Progress, round two is created for you.
Open the interview. At the top, it says Brightline wants another round, with her comment, and that the decision was theirs.
PlacementFlow can tell Daniel he's moving on. Click Tell Daniel, then Send, or Skip to tell him yourself.
Then click Open round 2. Round two waits for Elena's times, like the first round. Click Copy Client Scheduling Link and send it to her. She proposes times and Daniel books one, exactly as in the earlier video.
If Elena gives you her answer by phone instead, record it with Log what Brightline Systems said, and round two is set up the same way.
Both rounds stay linked. The arrows beside the round number take you between them, so the whole process with this client is one chain.
Next: making an offer.
An interview starts in one of three ways: you offer the candidate some times, you send the candidate your booking page, or your client asks for one from the email you sent with the candidate. In every case the interview is booked only when someone picks a time. This guide covers each path, what each person receives, and what happens around the call.
The interview now reads Awaiting Selection in your list. Nothing is booked yet.
When you submit a candidate (see Submitting Candidates to Clients), the client usually answers by replying, and you click Client is interested on the submission; when the email carries reply links (off by default), the client can click the interview link and confirm instead. Either way an interview is created. What happens next depends on the scheduling option for that client.
| Option | What your client does | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Client books directly | Clicks Pick a time (or the scheduling link you copy from the interview), then proposes 3 to 5 times. The candidate is emailed the times and picks one | Nothing, unless the times stop working (see below) |
| You approve the client's times first | Clicks Suggest a few times (or the scheduling link you copy from the interview), then proposes 3 to 5 times, which wait for you | The interview reads Needs you. Send the client's times to the candidate, add your own, or ask the client for other times |
| You arrange every interview | Clicks Say yes and confirms, or just replies. Gets no link to propose times | The interview reads Needs you. Ask the candidate for their times with Request Availability, or click Propose times |
Where to set it:
This setting changes only what the client can do. Times you propose yourself always go straight to the candidate. Interviews created through the partner API are not affected: the partner system that created them runs its own scheduling.
The candidate opens a link from their email. No login is needed.
Under the times they are offered, the candidate sees "None of these work for you?" with Suggest other times. So does your client when picking from the candidate's times (not when you arrange every interview).
Each answer counts as one round. After 5 rounds without agreement, PlacementFlow stops the back-and-forth and sends you a notification, "Interview scheduling needs you", so you can arrange the time directly.
The moment a time is picked:
On the interview page, use Reschedule to pick a new time or propose new times, or Cancel Interview to call it off. The candidate can reschedule or cancel from the links in their confirmation and reminder emails. Your client can reschedule from their portal, except when you arrange every interview: then the portal offers them a button to email you instead.
See Self-Service Reschedule and Cancellation for the full flow.
PlacementFlow creates the calendar event when a time is booked, using the calendar connected in Settings → Integrations → Calendar & Video.
Google Workspace support is pending Google's security review. Until then, Microsoft 365 / Outlook is the supported connection.
Phone and in-person interviews do not need one. For a video interview, paste a Zoom, Teams or Google Meet link into Meeting URL when you create it.
These go out on their own once an interview is booked:
You can switch each reminder off in Settings → Automations. After the interview, if nobody recorded the call, PlacementFlow asks you whether it happened rather than marking a no-show on its own. See No-Shows and Reminders.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Awaiting Selection | Times are on offer and the candidate picks one |
| Awaiting Client's Times | The client asked for an interview and is proposing times |
| Awaiting Client | The client picks one of the candidate's times |
| Awaiting Candidate | The candidate has been asked for their availability |
| Needs you | You owe the next step: approve times, or arrange the interview |
| Scheduled | A time is booked |
| Completed | The interview took place |
| Cancelled / No Show | It did not go ahead |
On a video interview with Interview notetaker and write-up switched on in Settings → Automations, a notetaker joins the call, and a summary of what was said, with strengths, red flags and key moments, appears on the interview's Analysis tab afterwards; the decision stays yours. See Interview Recording and AI Analysis.