Guide
How to set up your calendar and availability.
Keep every interview, career fair, and event on one calendar, and let candidates book themselves into the windows your team is free. This guide walks through the Calendar tab step by step, with screenshots, from your first availability set to Google sync and saved meeting links. It works the same for organizations, schools, and departments.
Before you start
- Sign in to your organization, school, or department portal and open the Calendar tab.
- Have a meeting link ready (Zoom, Google Meet, or Teams) if you interview virtually. You can add it later too.
- Be on a team role that can manage interviews. The controls are hidden, and refused on the server, otherwise.
Open the Calendar tab
The Calendar tab opens on a month view of everything you have coming up: interviews, the career fairs and events you host or attend, and any custom entries, all color coded. Filter by interviews, career fairs, or events, jump to Today, step through the coming months, and click any day to open its agenda with start and end times and a one tap join link. It is built from your real activity on the platform, so it is a living reminder, not a calendar you maintain by hand.
- Each filter chip shows a live count, so you can see at a glance how many interviews or events are this month.
- Click a day to see every item on it, with times shown in your timezone and a join link for virtual meetings.
- It is the same Calendar tab for organizations, schools, and departments. Students get their own personal calendar.
Create an availability set
Move to the Availability sub-tab and select Create New Set. Give it a name (for example, Spring Internship Interviews), an optional description, a start and end date, and the earliest and latest hour you want to offer. Add a default meeting link if you have one. Each window is a 30 minute interview slot. This is where you decide the shape of your interview season before a single applicant is involved.
- There is no limit on how many sets you create, and no per-interview, per-slot, or per-booking fee. The engine is unmetered.
- Create a separate set for each interviewer, team, or round. A first round set and a final round set can run side by side.
- A meeting link added here becomes the default for every interview booked from this set. You can change it per set.
Paint the windows your team is free
Continue to the grid, then click and drag to paint the exact 30 minute windows you are open. Painted cells turn green, past slots are locked, and a legend keeps it clear. Save when you are done. When you later invite a candidate from the hiring pipeline, they see only these open windows and book themselves into one, so you never trade emails to find a time and you never get a double booking. Editing the set notifies everyone currently invited.
- Set a set as the default, or pin it to a specific opportunity, so inviting a candidate is one click from the hiring drawer.
- Times are stamped on the server in your institution timezone, so a teammate in another city paints the same window.
- Archive a set when a season ends. Its data is kept, and you can spin up a fresh set for the next round.
Connect Google Calendar (optional)
On the Google Sync sub-tab, connect your Google Calendar in one click for two-way sync. Confirmed interviews, career fairs, and events are pushed into your Google Calendar with the attendees and the meeting link, and any edits you make there are pulled back automatically, so you keep one source of truth. Prefer not to connect an account? Generate a read only feed link and subscribe to it from Apple Calendar, Outlook, or Google instead.
- We request only the permission to manage calendar events and read your account email. The authorization is encrypted at rest.
- Disconnect at any time, which deletes the stored authorization. Rotating the feed link revokes every existing subscriber.
- Students can connect Google Calendar too, and choose which categories sync: interviews, invitations, offers, and saved deadlines.
Save your meeting and booking links once
On the Links sub-tab, save a default meeting link (Zoom, Google Meet, or Teams) and, if you use one, an external booking link such as a Google appointment schedule, Calendly, or Cal.com page. Saved once, they travel with every interview and appear on your career fair cards and public profile. The student receives the meeting link in their confirmation, their reminders, and their own calendar entry, so it is there at the moment they need it, with no last minute scramble.
- Saved meeting links must use https and resolve to a trusted host (Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Webex, Whereby, Calendly, Cal.com).
- The host is matched by its real domain, so a look-alike such as zoom.us.example.com is rejected before it can be stored.
- You never paste a link into an email again, and a student never gets the wrong link from last week.
What the student sees, and how timezones are handled
Scheduling quietly breaks on time math. We do it for you, on the server, at every step, so the institution and the student are never an hour apart.
You paint in your zone
Availability is stamped in your institution timezone, so two teammates in different cities produce the same window.
The student picks, labeled
Candidates see your open slots in your institution timezone with a banner telling them which zone they are choosing in.
Confirmations convert
After they book, the student sees their own local time, and every reminder is converted to each recipient timezone.
Good to know
Unlimited and unmetered
No cap on availability sets, windows, or bookings, and no per-interview or per-booking fee, ever.
Students self book
Invite a candidate or a shortlist and each one picks an open window. No emails to find a time, no double bookings.
Save the link once
Your meeting link travels with every interview, into the confirmation, reminders, and the student calendar.
One source of truth
Two-way Google sync keeps your StudentLife OS schedule in step with your personal calendar, both ways.
Safe by design
Meeting links are https only and checked against a trusted host allowlist, so a phishing link can never be saved.
Timezones handled
Paint once in your zone. Students see it labeled, and confirmations and reminders convert to each viewer own zone.
Keep going
Frequently asked
Do I need to set availability before I can interview anyone?+
It is the recommended first step. Painting your availability ahead of time means that when applicants arrive, you invite them from the hiring pipeline and they book themselves into your open windows, with no back-and-forth. You can still create a set at any point, but doing it before your season starts makes scheduling effortless once the pipeline fills up.
Is there a limit on how many availability sets or interviews I can create?+
No. There is no cap on availability sets, interview windows, or bookings, and no per-interview, per-slot, or per-booking fee. The scheduling engine is unmetered. Interview scheduling is part of the recruiting toolkit, which is included for schools and departments and is on the Pro plan and above for organizations.
Can each interviewer have their own availability and meeting link?+
Yes. Create a separate set per interviewer, team, or round, each with its own dates, hours, and meeting link. One person can use a shared team meeting room while another uses their own. A first round set and a final round set can run at the same time without colliding, and editing a set notifies everyone currently invited to it.
What happens with timezones when a student in another state books?+
It is handled for you. You paint availability in your institution timezone, the student is shown those slots in your institution timezone with a clear banner telling them which zone to pick in, and once they confirm, the time is displayed in their own local timezone. Reminders go out converted to each recipient timezone, so nobody does the math and nobody shows up an hour off.
Do I have to connect Google Calendar?+
No. Google Calendar sync is optional. The Calendar tab, availability, booking, reminders, and saved links all work without it. If you do connect, your confirmed interviews and events sync both ways so your StudentLife OS schedule lives alongside the rest of your calendar. You can also subscribe to a read only feed link from Apple Calendar or Outlook without connecting an account at all.
Is the Calendar tab the same for organizations, schools, and departments?+
Yes. The four sub-tabs (Calendar, Availability, Google Sync, and Links) work identically on all three admin sides. Students get a personal calendar of their interviews, invitations, offers, and saved deadlines, with the same optional Google sync. Within an account, the actions are gated by team role and enforced on the server.
Set up your calendar in minutes
Create an account, paint your first availability set, and let booking, reminders, timezones, and Google sync run themselves.