Scheduling Overview

Why It Matters

Most hiring tools force you to bolt on Calendly, SavvyCal, or another booking tool. That means managing separate logins, paying extra per-seat fees, and context-switching between systems. Kit includes interview scheduling as a first-class feature: candidates book directly through their magic link portal and your calendar stays up-to-date automatically.

How It Works

Kit’s scheduling system has three layers:

1. Personal availability: Define your weekly hours, date overrides, and daily meeting limits
2. Calendar integration: Connect Google Calendar to automatically block out conflicts
3. Team coordination: Combine multiple interviewers’ availability, either with your account’s scheduling strategy or by requiring several interviewers on a stage

When a candidate reaches an interview stage, they see the available time slots that fit the stage’s interviewer requirement and your account’s scheduling strategy. They pick a slot, confirm, and every interviewer Kit seats on it gets the interview: written to the calendar of anyone who switched Allow creating events in this calendar on, and emailed as an .ics to everyone else.

Key Concepts

Availability Schedules

Each team member creates one or more availability schedules that define when they’re open for interviews. A schedule includes:

• Weekly hours: Your regular working hours by day of week
• Date overrides: Block out specific dates (vacations, holidays) or add custom hours for one-off availability
• Meeting limits: Save planned limits; Kit does not yet block bookings when those limits are reached
• Buffers: Add padding before/after meetings for travel or prep time
• Scheduling windows: Limit how far in advance candidates can book

You can create multiple schedules (e.g., “Standard Hours” and “Extended Hours”) and switch between them on different accounts.

Scheduling Strategy

When multiple potential interviewers are assigned to a stage, Kit combines their availability one of three ways. Two are account-wide strategies set once in your hiring settings; the third is a per-stage setting that overrides them.

How slots are combined	Behavior	Use Case
Maximize Availability (any interviewer hosts), account-wide, default	Show every slot where any interviewer is free, so one of them can host	Maximize bookable times when any single interviewer can take the interview
Balanced Workload (rotate interviewers), account-wide	Show slots from the least-loaded interviewers	Distribute interview load evenly across the team
Interviewers Required of 2 or more, per stage	Show only the slots where at least that many interviewers are free, and seat that many	Stages where several people have to be in the room at once

You choose between the two strategies once in your hiring settings, and they govern every stage that needs a single interviewer. Raising Interviewers Required on a stage takes that stage out of their hands and always narrows its slots, never widens them. See Interview Scheduling for setup details.

Conflict Detection

When you connect Google Calendar, Kit reads your events (only busy start and end times, without titles) and automatically removes conflicting slots from the candidate’s booking page. Changes are taken into account the next time Kit checks availability with Google Calendar.

Kit checks for conflicts across all calendars you’ve enabled in your Availability Settings. Personal, work, or shared calendars: as long as they’re connected, Kit accounts for them.

What Makes It Different

Unlike standalone booking tools, Kit’s scheduling is integrated into the hiring workflow:

• Candidate portal integration: Candidates book through the same magic link they use for applications and submissions. No separate account required.
• AI assistant visibility: Claude or other MCP clients can report interview scheduling status for an application, including whether a stage is still awaiting scheduling. Booking itself happens through the candidate portal, not the assistant.
• Stage-specific configuration: Different interview stages can use different durations, interviewer pools, and numbers of required interviewers. (Maximize Availability versus Balanced Workload is set account-wide; a stage requiring two or more interviewers overrides it.)
• Automatic notifications: Slack notifications, email reminders, and calendar invites are generated automatically when interviews are scheduled, confirmed, or cancelled.
• No separate scheduling fee: Scheduling is included in Kit’s team-user subscription. The number of interviews does not increase the charge.

Common Workflows

Solo Interviewer

1. Create your availability schedule with weekly hours
2. Connect Google Calendar to prevent double-booking
3. Configure your interview stage with yourself as the only interviewer
4. Candidate sees your available slots and books directly

Multiple Interviewers

1. All interviewers create their availability schedules
2. Configure the interview stage with multiple interviewers
3. Set your account’s scheduling strategy to Maximize Availability (any interviewer hosts)
4. Candidates see every slot where any one interviewer is free, maximizing the times available to book
5. If several of them have to attend together, raise Interviewers Required on the stage; Kit then offers only the slots where that many are free

Balanced Workload Distribution

1. Build a pool of interviewers who handle first-round screens
2. Configure the interview stage with the full pool
3. Set your account’s scheduling strategy to Balanced Workload (rotate interviewers)
4. Kit shows slots from the least-loaded interviewers to balance workload

Quick Checklist

• Read Managing Your Availability to set up your schedule
• Connect Google Calendar to prevent conflicts
• Choose the scheduling strategy that matches your workflow, and set Interviewers Required on any stage where several interviewers must attend
• Test the candidate experience by viewing a staging or published job