Booking an interview shouldn't take five emails. The event scheduler lets you share a link, and candidates pick a time that works for everyone. This article explains how to set each interviewer's availability, how Tellent works out which time slots to show, and what to do when candidates see start times like 9:25 AM instead of 9:00 AM or 9:30 AM.
Note: The event scheduler is available on the Advance and Optimize plans. You also need the Schedule events and video calls permission to create or edit links.
Create an event scheduler link
Every event scheduler link is a reusable set of rules: who interviews, when they're available, how long the event lasts, and how often a slot can start.
Go to Settings > Workflow > Event scheduler.
Click New event scheduler link. To change an existing one, click it in the list instead.
Enter a Link name. This is for your team, not for candidates.
Enter an Event name. Candidates see this one, and you can use placeholders such as [candidate.first] to personalize it.
Set the Date range and Expires after values to control how far ahead candidates can book and how long the link stays valid.
Click Create link.
Tip: Click Duplicate on an existing link to reuse its settings for a similar interview type, instead of building it again from scratch.
Add interviewers and set their availability
Candidates only ever see availability from the interviewers on the link. Adding someone here is what pulls their calendar into the calculation.
Open the event scheduler link you want to edit.
In the Interviewers section, click Add interviewer.
Select the people who'll run this interview, then confirm. Each one gets their own tab.
Click an interviewer's tab to open their availability.
Select the checkbox next to each weekday they're available.
Set a start time and an end time for that day.
To add a second window on the same day — for example, before and after lunch — click the + button next to the times.
Check the time zone at the bottom of the tab. It reads "[Name] time zone is [time zone]". Click it to change the time zone for that interviewer.
Repeat for every interviewer, then click Save link.
Note: An availability window has to be at least as long as the event duration. If you set a window that's too short, the time pickers turn red and the scheduler shows an error instead of saving.
Connect each interviewer's calendar
Availability windows say when someone is willing to interview. Their connected calendar says when they're actually free. Without a connected calendar, Tellent offers every slot in the window, including times the interviewer is already booked.
If someone on the link hasn't connected a calendar, the link shows an infobox headed Some interviewers haven't connected their calendars, listing who's missing. Ask them to connect their calendar, then reopen the link to confirm the infobox is gone.
Choose how Tellent picks the interviewer
Above the interviewer tabs, choose one of two options. This changes which slots candidates see, so it's worth getting right.
Invite all — candidates only see times when every interviewer on the link is free. Everyone is invited to the event. Use this for panel interviews.
Only the first available — candidates see times when at least one interviewer is free. Once the candidate picks a slot, Tellent assigns the first interviewer who's available at that time. Use this when any one of several people can run the interview.
Note: Adding one interviewer to a link is what limits availability to that person's calendar. Adding several and leaving Invite all selected narrows availability to the times they all share, which can leave very few slots.
Control the times candidates can book
These settings sit in the Availability settings area and the row of dropdown menus below it. Together they decide how many slots appear and where they fall.
Event duration
How long the interview is. Choose 15, 20, 30, 45, or 60 minutes, or choose Custom and enter any value from 5 to 720 minutes.
Tellent never offers a slot that doesn't fit. A 30-minute event won't appear in a 20-minute gap.
Start time slots every
How far apart the offered start times are. Choose any value from 5 to 60 minutes, in steps of 5. The default is 30 minutes.
A shorter interval gives candidates more options and makes it likelier that one of them works for the candidate.
Note: This setting is independent of the event duration. A 60-minute event with a 15-minute interval offers overlapping start times, such as 9:00 AM, 9:15 AM, and 9:30 AM. Only one of them can be booked — once a candidate takes 9:00 AM, the overlapping options disappear.
Add buffer time
Select Add buffer time and choose a value from 5 to 60 minutes to keep a gap around every meeting already in the interviewer's calendar.
The buffer is applied to both sides of each existing event. With a 15-minute buffer, a meeting from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM blocks 9:45 AM to 11:15 AM.
Important: Buffer time doesn't make start times tidier — it usually does the opposite. Because the buffer shifts the end of each blocked period, the next free gap often starts at an odd time. See the section on why candidates see times like 9:25 AM below.
Ignore all-day events
Select Ignore all-day events so that all-day entries in an interviewer's calendar don't block bookings. This is useful when your team uses all-day events for things like "Working from home" or public holidays they're still available on.
Clear the checkbox and any all-day event blocks that whole day.
Limit the number of meetings
Select Limit the number of meetings and enter a number to cap how many interviews can be booked through this link per day.
Once a day hits the cap, that entire day disappears from the candidate's view — not just the remaining slots.
Why do candidates see times like 9:25 AM?
This is the most common question about the event scheduler, and it comes from how slots are built.
Tellent doesn't line slots up with the clock. For each day, it:
Takes the interviewer's availability window for that day.
Removes everything already booked in their connected calendar, plus any buffer time on either side.
If the event uses a meeting room, removes any period when that room is busy.
Discards leftover gaps that are shorter than the event duration.
In each remaining gap, places the first slot at the very start of that gap, then adds another slot every X minutes, where X is your Start time slots every value.
The key detail is that the interval is measured from the start of each free gap, not from the top of the hour. If a gap starts at 9:25 AM, the slots in it are 9:25 AM, 9:55 AM, 10:25 AM, and so on.
An example
An interviewer is available from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM. The event is 30 minutes, with slots starting every 30 minutes and no buffer time.
Their calendar is empty, so there's one free gap: 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM.
Slots run 9:00 AM, 9:30 AM, 10:00 AM, and so on. Everything looks tidy.
Now the same interviewer accepts a meeting from 10:10 AM to 10:55 AM.
The day splits into two gaps: 9:00 AM to 10:10 AM, and 10:55 AM to 1:00 PM.
The first gap gives 9:00 AM and 9:30 AM. The 10:00 AM slot is gone, because a 30-minute event starting at 10:00 AM would run into the meeting.
The second gap starts at 10:55 AM, so it gives 10:55 AM, 11:25 AM, 11:55 AM, and 12:25 PM.
Nothing is broken — the scheduler is filling the real gaps in a real calendar.
How to get cleaner start times
You can't force the scheduler to use exact clock times, but you can make odd times much rarer:
Start and end availability windows on clean times, such as 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM rather than 8:50 AM to 5:10 PM.
Ask interviewers to keep their own meetings starting and ending on the hour, half hour, or quarter hour. Every meeting that ends at an odd minute creates a gap that starts at an odd minute.
If you use buffer time, set it to a multiple of your Start time slots every value. A 30-minute buffer with a 30-minute interval keeps aligned meetings aligned. A 15-minute buffer with a 30-minute interval pushes everything off by 15 minutes.
Turn buffer time off entirely if tidy start times matter more to you than breathing room between interviews.
Keep the link to one interviewer, or use Only the first available. With Invite all, gaps are cut by several calendars at once, which creates more odd boundaries.
Tip: Use Preview at the top of the link to see exactly what candidates see before you send it. It's the fastest way to check whether your settings produce the slots you expected.
Why can't candidates book the next few hours?
Even when an interviewer is free, the scheduler won't offer a slot that starts within the next four hours. This protects your team from same-morning bookings they haven't seen yet.
So if it's 9:00 AM now, the earliest slot a candidate can pick starts at 1:00 PM, if that time is free. This is fixed and can't be changed per link. To offer earlier interviews, contact the candidate directly instead of using a scheduler link.
Frequently asked questions
Can I force all interviews to start exactly on the hour or half hour?
Can I force all interviews to start exactly on the hour or half hour?
No. The scheduler respects your interval and event duration, but it anchors slots to the start of each free gap in the calendar, not to the clock. Following the tips in How to get cleaner start times above gets you close in practice.
Why does a candidate see no availability at all?
Why does a candidate see no availability at all?
The most common causes are: no interviewers on the link, availability windows shorter than the event duration, an interviewer's calendar being fully booked, every day hitting the meeting limit, or the whole date range falling inside the four-hour minimum notice period.
Why does adding a second interviewer reduce the number of slots?
Why does adding a second interviewer reduce the number of slots?
With Invite all selected, only times when everyone is free are offered. Switch to Only the first available if any one of them can run the interview.
Do interviewers in different time zones work correctly?
Do interviewers in different time zones work correctly?
Yes. Each interviewer's availability is stored in their own time zone, shown at the bottom of their tab. Candidates see slots in their own local time.
Does buffer time apply to slots the scheduler creates, or only to existing meetings?
Does buffer time apply to slots the scheduler creates, or only to existing meetings?
It's applied around meetings already in the interviewer's calendar, including interviews booked earlier through Tellent. That's what stops back-to-back bookings.
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