Group Interview Sessions are for live, recruiter-led interviews — a recruiter meets with several candidates in the same time slot, whether in person or over video. This is separate from AI-run interviews; it's for scheduling time on a recruiter's own calendar.
Group Interview Sessions let you open a single time slot to more than one candidate — useful for walk-in events, orientation-style interviews, or any high-volume role where several candidates go through the same session together. Turn on Multi-availability for a time slot in My Calendar, set how many seats it holds, and candidates book in until every seat is taken.
This builds on the same calendar you already use for one-to-one interviews, so confirmations, reminders, and conferencing links all work the same way — the only difference is that more than one candidate can hold the same time.
Turn on Group Interview Sessions
Go to Account Settings and open My Calendar.
Enable Multi-availability.
Paint availability on the calendar grid as you normally would.
Click the seat badge on a painted time slot and set how many candidates it should hold.
Click Save.
Note: Multi-availability can't be switched off while candidates are booked into a session. Move or cancel those bookings first.
How Candidates Book a Group Session
Candidates book a group session the same way they book any interview — through a landing page, chat link, or scheduler URL. The time slot stays visible with its remaining seat count until it's full. Once every seat is taken, the slot no longer appears as an option, and candidates are offered other available times instead.
Session States
A group session can be in one of three states, visible on the recruiter's calendar event:
Open | Seats remain. The session is still offered to new candidates. |
Full | Every seat is taken. The session no longer appears as bookable, but existing bookings are unaffected. |
Closed to new bookings | The recruiter removed the availability behind this session. Candidates already booked keep their seat, but no new candidates can join until availability is restored at that time. |
When the Recruiter Is Genuinely Busy
Talkpush checks the recruiter's live calendar together with the seat count before offering a session. If the recruiter accepts an unrelated commitment at that time — the same as with a one-to-one slot — the session stops being offered to candidates, even if seats remain. A group session also can't be double-booked with a one-to-one interview, and a one-to-one slot can't be booked on top of a running group session.
Editing Seats and Availability
Raising or lowering the seat count on a session updates the calendar event text immediately, so the recruiter's calendar always shows the current capacity.
If the availability behind a session is removed while candidates are already booked, the session freezes: it keeps the candidates already booked but stops accepting new ones, and the calendar event is labeled Closed to new bookings with the current count. Painting availability back at the same time reopens the session to new bookings.
Freeing Up a Seat
When a candidate reschedules or cancels their interview, their seat is automatically freed for another candidate, and the calendar event updates to reflect the change. The session itself stays open for everyone else.
Q: What happens when a session is full? A: The session no longer appears as an option to candidates. They're offered other available times instead. Q: Can two candidates take the last seat at the same moment? A: No. Only one of them gets the booking; the other is refused clearly and shown other available times. Q: Do group sessions send the same confirmations and reminders as one-to-one interviews? A: Yes. Confirmation messages, reminders, and conferencing links all work the same way as a one-to-one booking. Q: Can I still run one-to-one interviews if I never use group sessions? A: Yes. Turning on Multi-availability only changes behavior for the time slots you configure with more than one seat. Everything else works as before. |
