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Accept / decline interview internal activation guide

 Feature overview

 

What is it?

The accept/decline interview feature with email buttons is for candidates to easily confirm or decline interview invitations. This enhancement improves candidate response process, visibility for recruiters and tracking for reporting. It reduces manual follow-up, decreases interview no-shows and enhances recruitment efficiency.

 

Objective

  • Create an accept/decline function in the interview emails
  • Display a visual indicator of acceptance or non-confirmation on the candidate listing page along with status updates
  • Send a cancellation to interviewers should the candidate decline the interview.
  • Improve the display of the manual interview booking page
  • Add the ability to preview and edit before sending on interview / interviewer invite emails

Key results and metrics

  • Enhanced candidate experience through easier response to interview invitations
  • Improved visibility of candidate interview statuses for recruiters and reduction in manual follow-up communication
  • Efficient tracking of candidate responses for reporting purposes

Out of scope

  • Self-service interviews. This is specifically only for the manual interview process
  • This will not impact the MS Teams functionality as that already has accept/decline functionality built in using the user’s existing email client/scheduling process

 

Overview of changes

Core functionality changes which impact all clients:

 

System customisation:

  • Additional fields for Invite Accepted / Decline Status updates
  • Additional Interview Cancel email
  • Relabelling of calendar booked status to Invite Sent
  • The accept/decline merge fields in interview invites are config based, so core functionality. They are not available in the merge field table in email templates to prevent clients without the feature activated utilising these

Feature-based items:

  • Links in candidates invite to interview emails to accept or decline the interview
  • The calendar icon is a visual indicator of acceptance or non-confirmation on the candidate listing page along with candidate status updates:
    1. Amber: awaiting response
    2. Red: Interview declined by the candidate
    3. Green: Interview accepted by the candidate
  • The cancellation email can be sent to interviewers when the candidate declines the interview with a .VCS file to remove the interview (if the interview is cancelled from the client side this just sends hard coded cancellation email to interviewer which is standard functionality)
  • Ability to preview and edit before sending on interview / interviewer invite emails for those users who have edit emails sent on a status change enabled in security roles.

 

Changes to system customisation

Customise Page > Interview Statuses

  • Calendar Booked Status section header relabelled to Interview Statuses

Before:

 

After:

 

Interview Statuses:

  • The existing Interview Booked status is to be re-labelled Invite Sent to accurately reflect the behaviour of this status change (candidate status auto-updates to Invite Sent when users select ‘Send Invite’ from the manual interview booking page).
  • Addition of two new fields:
    • Interview Accepted field (the status the candidate updates to once the invite is accepted)
    • Interview Declined field (the status the candidate is updated to when the interview is declined)
  • The Interview Accepted status change will be used by both:
    • Calendar (when the candidate chooses a time and confirms their interview – but can still be changed on a per calendar event basis when users are creating events)
    • Manual interviews (when the candidate chooses to accept the interview if they have enabled the Accept/Decline feature)

Rollout notes:

  • Will be deployed off by default and clients can request activation of the feature
  • If feature is disabled for a client, the calendar icons will be a default colour (+date/time appears once interview record is created)
  • Upon roll-out the Interview Accepted field is to automatically be populated with the same application status as the current Interview Booked field (which will be Invite Sent as of 28th Feb 2024) to keep the status quo in terms of automated status updates
  • Upon roll-out the Interview Declined field will be blank
  • If the client does not have a status listed in ‘Interview Booked’ prior to the changes being rolled out, then this will remain blank for both Invite Sent and Interview Accepted

 

Activation process

Clients will request activation of this feature through the support team. Once activated this feature will be enabled for all manual interviews so please ensure clients are aware of this.

 

When activating the feature for existing clients the support team will complete all setup steps outlined below.

 

Setup information is provided in the client guide for future reference so that any future config changes can be easily managed without needing assistance from the support team.

 

Step 1: ATS Control Activation

Go to ATS Control > Client > Client Configuration

  • Add new
  • Name: feature-accept-decline-interview
  • Value = true

 

 

Step 2: Email Templates

Go to Settings > Communications > Email Templates:

 

2.1 Add in Accept/Decline Hyperlink

The {AcceptDecline} merge field must be included in any invite to interview emails to the candidate to allow them to Accept/ Decline the interview.

 

Add the below merge field into any candidate manual invite to interview email templates.

  • Hyperlink Merge field: {AcceptDecline}

 

2.2 Create Interviewer Cancellation Email

When a candidate declines an interview, a cancellation email is sent to interviewers and can include the candidate's reason.

 

You'll need to create a new email template for this.

 

To include the candidate reason for declining an interview, add this merge field in email text: {InterviewDeclineReason}.

 

Example Email Content:

 

Email Name: Interviewer - Manual Interview Cancelled

Subject: Interview Cancellation

Email Body

Job: {JOBS.JOBTITLE} (Ref: {JOBS.JOBREFERENCE})

 

The following interview has now been cancelled:

 

Candidate: {CANDIDATES.FIRSTNAME} {CANDIDATES.LASTNAME}

Interview Date: {CANDIDATEAPPLICATIONINTERVIEWS.InterviewDate} a

Interview Time: {CANDIDATEAPPLICATIONINTERVIEWS.InterviewTime}

 

Reason for Cancellation: {InterviewDeclineReason}

 

Kind regards,

 

Recruitment Team

 

Step 3: Candidate Application Statuses

Go to Settings > General Settings > Candidate Application Statuses.

 

Add a new candidate status for Interview Declined and possibly Interview Accepted. Ask the client if they would like different statuses for Invite Sent/Interview Accepted.

 

Step 4: System Customisation

4.1 Statuses

In System Customisation the Interview Statuses section statuses need to be configured.

 

Go to Settings > System Customisation > Customise > Interview Statuses.

  • Invite Sent: This is the status the candidate will update to once the invite has been sent
  • Interview Accepted: The status that candidates are updated to once they have accepted the interview
  • Interview Declined: The status candidates are updated to is they decline an interview

4.2 Emails

Navigate to the Emails section of System Customisation and scroll down to Set Manual Interview Email.

  • Default Candidate Interview Email: This is the default invite to interview email that is sent to candidates – this can be amended when inviting candidates, if required
  • Interview Cancel Email: Add the Interviewers Cancellation email created in step 2.2

 

 

Changing candidate site wording (if required)

If required, the on-screen wording for candidates for the accept/decline interview process can be amended on a per client basis via ATS control: