An interview template defines an interview type once — its name, and the interviewers who run it — so you don't rebuild it for every candidate. When you hit Schedule, you pick the template and the interviewers come pre-filled. The AI scheduler does the rest.

What a template holds

A template is an interview type with its panel attached: a phone screen, a technical round, an onsite loop. For each one you set the interviewers, and you mark each interviewer as required or optional.

That required-versus-optional split is the whole point of the feature, and the next section is why.

Required vs optional interviewers

The distinction tells the AI scheduler how hard to hold out for each person.

Required interviewers must all be free. The scheduler waits for the first slot where every one of them is available before it books anything.
Optional interviewers are included if they fit and skipped if they don't. A nice-to-have second engineer won't block the interview when their calendar is full.

So a technical round might require the hiring manager and the lead engineer, and list a second engineer as optional. The scheduler books around the two required people and adds the third only when a slot happens to suit them.

How templates feed the scheduler

When you start a scheduling request from a candidate's detail page, pick the interview template. The required and optional interviewers populate from it — you can still adjust them for this one candidate before starting.

From there the AI auto-scheduler takes the panel, reads each interviewer's availability window and calendar, and finds slots that work for everyone required. The template is the starting point; it doesn't lock you in.

When it gets it wrong

The wrong people are pre-filled. The template is out of date — update its interviewer list, or just adjust the panel for this candidate before starting the request.
Scheduling is slow for a routine round. Too many interviewers are marked required. Move the nice-to-haves to optional and the scheduler has more room.
An optional interviewer never gets booked. That's expected when their calendar is full — optional means skippable. Make them required if they truly must attend.

Limits

A template carries the interview type and its panel. Per-candidate timing preferences belong in natural-language constraints, not the template.
Changing a template doesn't touch interviews already scheduled. It applies to new scheduling requests.