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Every 15 minutes

Book interviews for candidates you shortlist in Airtable

When you mark a candidate as Shortlisted in Airtable, the next free 30-minute slot is booked on your calendar and the candidate is invited.

Runs
Every 15 minutes
Apps
Airtable, Google Calendar
AI
Optional
Access
Airtable read/write; calendar.events

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: when a candidate in my Airtable Candidates table is marked 'Shortlisted', book the next free 30-minute slot in my Google Calendar, invite them and record the time in Airtable.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A small recruitment agency tracks every candidate in Airtable. Shortlisting is quick, but then someone has to open the calendar, find a gap and send an invite, and on busy days shortlisted candidates wait three or four days to hear anything.

Booking the interview as soon as the status changes keeps candidates warm and lets your team spend its time assessing people rather than arranging calls.

What you get out of it

  • Candidates hear back within minutes

    The invite goes out shortly after you change the status, which matters when good candidates are talking to several employers.

  • Your base shows the interview time

    The booked time is written back to the candidate's record, so everyone on the team can see it in Airtable.

  • No calendar juggling

    Free time is found from your Google Calendar, so interviews never overlap existing meetings.

  • Each candidate is booked once

    Once a record has an interview time, it is not booked again, even if the status is changed back and forth.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every 15 minutes ClickRuntime checks your Airtable Candidates table for records marked Shortlisted with no interview booked.

  2. For each one, it finds the next free 30-minute slot in your Google Calendar.

  3. It creates the interview event and invites the candidate.

  4. The interview time is written back to the candidate's record in Airtable, so they are not booked twice.

Before it runs live

  • Connect Airtable
  • Connect Google Calendar

What you get

RunsEvery 15 minutes
Book interviews for candidates you shortlist in Airtabletoday, 9:00Succeeded
Google Calendar · InterviewInterview: Morgan Lee, Tuesday 21 October 09:30 to 10:00, guest morgan@northwind.example

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.
  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

  • Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
  • Change what the AI looks for, or how it writes the result
  • Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
  • Combine it with other Airtable and Google Calendar steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.
schedule_interviews_for_shortlisted_candidates.pyexample
from datetime import datetime, timedelta, timezone
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, report_fetched

AT = "https://api.airtable.com/v0/appXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/Candidates"
CAL = "https://www.googleapis.com/calendar/v3"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    at = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {credentials.secret('AIRTABLE_API_KEY')}"}
    recs = http.get(AT, headers=at, params={"filterByFormula": "AND({Status} = 'Shortlisted', {Interview} = BLANK())"}).json()["records"]
    report_fetched(len(recs))
    if not recs:
        return {"new": 0}
    h = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {credentials.connection('google', 'work')}"}
    t = (datetime.now(timezone.utc) + timedelta(days=1)).replace(hour=9, minute=0, second=0, microsecond=0)
    busy = http.post(f"{CAL}/freeBusy", headers=h, json={"timeMin": t.isoformat(), "timeMax": (t + timedelta(days=10)).isoformat(),
                     "items": [{"id": "primary"}]}).json()["calendars"]["primary"]["busy"]
    taken = [(datetime.fromisoformat(b["start"]), datetime.fromisoformat(b["end"])) for b in busy]
    for r in recs:
        while t.weekday() > 4 or not 9 <= t.hour < 17 or any(t < e and t + timedelta(minutes=30) > s for s, e in taken):
            t += timedelta(minutes=30)
        f = r["fields"]
        http.post(f"{CAL}/calendars/primary/events", headers=h, params={"sendUpdates": "all"}, json={
            "summary": f"Interview: {f['Name']}", "attendees": [{"email": f["Email"]}],
            "start": {"dateTime": t.isoformat()}, "end": {"dateTime": (t + timedelta(minutes=30)).isoformat()}})
        http.patch(f"{AT}/{r['id']}", headers=at, json={"fields": {"Interview": t.isoformat()}})
        taken.append((t, t + timedelta(minutes=30)))
    return {"booked": len(recs)}

FAQ

Common questions

Which field does it watch?
A Status field set to Shortlisted. You can use another field or value, such as a tick box called Book interview.
Does the candidate get a calendar invite?
Yes. They are added as a guest on the event, so they receive the standard Google Calendar invitation.
Can it write a personal invitation note?
Optionally. AI can add a short note to the invite mentioning the role and what to expect.
What permissions does it need?
Airtable read/write; calendar.events. Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
No, but you can ask for an AI step (for example a summary). It then uses ClickRuntime's built-in AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it checks. Checks that find nothing new and stop right away aren't counted.
Can I change how it works?
Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Set up “Book interviews for candidates you shortlist in Airtable” from your assistant

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