Self-scheduling in Gem guide

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As well as the ability to schedule interviews yourself, Gem Scheduling allows you to send self-scheduling links to candidates so that they can book their own one-on-one interviews. When you send a candidate this link, they can select from a list of possible slots to book themselves in for their interview, saving you time by eliminating the back-and-forth of collecting availability from the candidate in order to schedule them.

This article is intended for Gem ATS users as a follow-up to our Get started with Gem Scheduling article. If you haven’t already, we recommend working through that article before starting this one, in which we will take you through the necessary steps to set up the self-scheduling functionality, and to send self-scheduling links to candidates.

If you haven’t already connected your calendar to Gem Scheduling, check out the Get started with Gem Scheduling article for details of how to do that before proceeding with the rest of this article.

Requirements: Your Gem team must have the Gem ATS feature enabled. If you do not have this feature but are interested in adding it, please contact your Gem Customer Success Manager.

Eligibility: Available to all Gem ATS teams.

Job setup

Setting up jobs for self-scheduling involves much the same process as that detailed in the Gem Scheduling: Getting Started article. Where things differ is in the Scheduling defaults options for each interview stage.

An example interview stage with the ‘scheduling default’ options showing.

Firstly, if you want self-scheduling to be the default option for when a user views a candidate at this interview stage, you can do that by making sure the first drop-down is set to Self-schedule.

Advanced settings

Secondly, there is a Self-schedule section within the Advanced settings with a few options that you can adjust for this stage.

Automated follow-up

The first option you’ll see is a toggle switch labeled Automated follow-up, which defaults to OFF. When switched to ON, it causes an automated email to be sent to any candidate who receives a self-scheduling request but doesn’t schedule an interview within a given time of receiving the email. You can set a number of days to represent the amount of time to wait before sending the follow-up email.

Here’s what that email looks like:

An example of the automated follow-up email, which reads: “Hi Mike, I noticed you haven’t picked a time on the link I sent previously. Please click here and pick a time that works for you. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out! Thanks, Michael Dodd.”

The body of the email can’t be updated. It does, however, include the {{Candidate.FullName}} and {{Recruiter.FullName}} tokens so that it will always be personalized to the candidate receiving it.

Email template

Next, we recommend setting up the email template for self-scheduling requests, so that you won’t have to spend time assigning, amending or creating a new email every time you send a self-schedule request.

You may have already done this while working through the Gem Scheduling: Getting Started article, but if not you have the following options:

Select an existing template from the dropdown, and use it as it is.
Select an existing template then amend it to suit this interview stage.
Create your own message subject and body, and save as a new template (making sure to include the {SelfSchedulingRequest.Link} token in the body of the message).
Disable this email by selecting No email, if you don’t want to send anything (although we don’t recommend this).

When you’re setting up Gem Scheduling for the first time, we recommend creating a new message and saving it as a template.

Additionally, you can create and manage templates for self-scheduling requests in the Templates section of Gem Scheduling, under Messages and then Emails.

Booking preferences

Lastly, this section includes a range of options that allow you to tailor candidates’ experiences with self-scheduling requests.

The Advance notice and Booking options interval settings help determine what candidates can submit when self-scheduling:

Advance notice: How much notice is required between an interview being scheduled and when it takes place. We recommend setting this to 24 hours so that candidates can’t schedule interviews the day they take place, while still allowing for plenty of flexibility.
Booking options interval: The interval between time slots that candidates can book. We recommend setting this to 30 minutes so that time slots are on the hour or half-hour.
Allow candidate to reschedule/cancel: The minimum amount of notice candidates need to give between rescheduling or canceling an interview and when it was originally due to take place. We recommend setting this at 0 hours to allow for rescheduling or canceling with no restrictions.

Sending a self-scheduling link

When you’re ready to send a self-scheduling link to a candidate, go to the Application section of their record in Gem ATS.

An example candidate’s record, showing the ‘Self-schedule’ button against a ‘phone screen’ interview stage.

If you set up the job to have Self-scheduling as the scheduling default, you should see the Self-schedule button against the appropriate interview stage. If not, you can still find this option by selecting the drop-down arrow and choosing it from the list.

Selecting the Self-schedule button presents you with a send self-schedule request pop-up, which contains some basic information about the interview and the default wording for the self-schedule request email that will go out to the candidate (based on the template you created earlier).

A ‘self-schedule request pop-up’ with an email template selected.

NOTE: In order for this pop-up to display you need to have fully configured the job, with these four elements completed: interview duration, at least one interviewer, a self-schedule request email, a confirmation email (if used). If one or more of those elements has not been completed, you will instead be taken to an ‘Advanced settings’ page which contains all of the self-scheduling options, so you can complete everything there before sending the request.

If you need to change anything at this point, you can still do that. You can edit the email that the candidate will receive (either manually editing it, or selecting a different template) right from this pop-up, or if you need to amend anything else you can select the Advanced settings button to see all of the available information that can be edited.

When you’re happy that everything is configured correctly, you have two options:

Send request via email: Select this to send the self-scheduling request to the candidate - this generates an automated email in a new email thread.
Save & generate link: This will copy a link to your clipboard that you can then send out manually to the candidate instead of generating an email - for example if you already have an email thread going with the candidate, and would prefer to keep everything in that one place.

With the self-schedule request email sent, you’ll see a confirmation page which includes the self-schedule link alongside an overview of the main details of the interview.

A ‘self-schedule request’ confirmation page, including the self-scheduling link.

From here you can either return to the Scheduling Queue, or go to the candidate’s profile.

An example candidate’s record, showing a note which states ‘self-schedule requested just now’ against a ‘phone screen’ interview stage.

From the candidate profile you can see that the interview stage has been updated with some self-scheduling information, including:

Details of when the self-schedule request was made.
Interview status, which will display Self-schedule requested until the candidate has completed the self-scheduling process.
The self-scheduling link, in case you want to share that manually.
Details of the interviewer pool.
Automation details, confirming whether automation is on or not and, if enabled, when a reminder will be sent (if required) to the candidate.

Bulk self-scheduling

If you want to send self-scheduling links to multiple candidates who are all in the same interview stage, you can do that by self-scheduling in bulk.

NOTE: The maximum number of candidates that you can bulk self-schedule is 35.

In the Scheduling Queue, you can use the Select option next to a candidate's name to add them to a selection, then continue to do this until you've selected all of the candidates who you would like to self-schedule.

With at least one candidate selected, you'll see the Bulk self-schedule button appear at the top of the page, alongside a note displaying the number of candidates currently selected. Once you've selected all of the candidates that you want to self-schedule, select this button to open the 'Bulk self-schedule' page.

From this point onwards, the workflow is essentially the same as when sending an individual self-scheduling link. The 'Bulk self-schedule' page clearly shows how many candidates are being self-scheduled, and what interview you're self-scheduling them for.

From here you also have the opportunity to amend any of the relevant details - event details, interviewers, the message to candidates, the confirmation email, etc.

When you're happy with everything on this page, select the Bulk send scheduling links button to send the self-scheduling emails.

What does the candidate see?

When you send a self-schedule request email, the candidate will receive an email based on the template you chose, including a link to click to make their selection. Here’s an example of what that email might look like:

An example of a self-schedule request email, which reads: “Hi Michael, Thanks for your interest in the Technical Editor position. We’re excited to move forward with the interview process. To schedule your Phone screen interview, please select a time that you’re available at this link. Let me know if you have any questions.”

When the candidate selects the link in their email, they will be taken to a page with a calendar and a range of time slot options, depending on the availability of the interviewers in the interview pool.

An example of the calendar page that a candidate will see when they click the link in a self-schedule request email, showing a month of a calendar along with several suggested time slots.

Here the candidate can look through all of the available dates, and select a time slot for their interview. When they confirm this, they will see confirmation of the time slot they selected, as well as information about rescheduling or cancelling the interview if required. At this point the candidate can cancel or reschedule from this page if they realise they have made a mistake.

Additionally, the candidate will then be sent a calendar invite and a confirmation email, with details of the time slot they selected.

What do you see once a candidate self-schedules?

When a candidate completes the self-scheduling process, you will also receive an email confirming the details of what they have booked.

In addition, if you look at the candidate’s profile you will see that the scheduling status has now been updated to Scheduled, and that the interview stage now contains details of when the interview is scheduled for.

An example candidate’s record, showing that the candidate’s scheduling status is set to ‘Scheduled’, and listing the details of when an interview has been scheduled against the relevant ‘Phone screen’ interview stage.

If the candidate reschedules or cancels their interview, you will receive emails confirming those details too.

➡️ Next, you’ll learn how to manage candidates in process!

Have any issues or questions on this topic? Please feel free to contact your dedicated Gem Customer Success Manager directly or our Support team at support@gem.com.

Job setup
Advanced settings
Automated follow-up
Email template
Booking preferences
Sending a self-scheduling link
Bulk self-scheduling
What does the candidate see?
What do you see once a candidate self-schedules?