Send the prep the day before, not the morning of
Everything a candidate needs is scattered across your inbox — the invite, the interviewer's name, what the format is, where the entrance actually is. This gathers it per interview and drafts the pack, so the ones happening tomorrow go out today.
Interviewing tomorrow
4 · 2 packs incomplete
Rahul Kapoor
11:00Calder Rail · tech screen · video
- Zoom link
- Interviewer bio
- Format
- Role brief
Nadia Osei
14:30Wexley Group · 2nd stage · on site
- Address
- Role brief
- Interviewer bio
No parking or entrance detail — she asked about this last time
Fiona Crane
09:00Northgate · final · panel
- Address
- Format
Panel members not confirmed — three names still unknown
Danny Whitfield
16:00Wexley Group · 1st stage · video
- Zoom link
- Interviewer bio
- Format
- Role brief
Fiona has a panel final at nine tomorrow and doesn't know who's on the panel. That's discoverable now and awkward at 08:55.
Works with
- Google Calendar
- Gmail
- Google Drive
- Zoom
- Google Docs
- Outlook
It builds each pack from the calendar entry, the thread with the client, and whatever you keep on file about that account. Video links come from the Zoom or Meet entry already on the invite — it doesn't create a new one and risk sending a link nobody is waiting on.
The chore
How this goes right now
The information a candidate needs before an interview exists. It's just distributed across six places: the joining link is on the calendar invite, the interviewer's name is in a thread from last week, the format was mentioned on a phone call, the role brief is a document in Drive, and the fact that the visitor entrance is round the side on Meridian Street is something you learned the hard way when a candidate rang you from the wrong door.
Assembling that into a message takes ten minutes per interview, and it competes with everything else on a Tuesday. So it gets done for the important ones and skipped for the rest, or it goes out at eight the next morning when the candidate is already on a train and can't read a role brief properly. And the ones that get skipped are rarely the ones that don't matter — they're the ones where you were busiest, which is usually when you have the most interviews running.
The cost falls entirely on the candidate and comes back to you. Someone walks into a final-stage panel not knowing there are three people in the room. Someone prepares for a technical discussion and gets a competency interview. They underperform in a way that has nothing to do with whether they can do the job, the client passes, and you've lost a placement to preparation you could have sent in ninety seconds — while the candidate quietly concludes you didn't have their back.
The difference
Same information, gathered instead of remembered
None of this is new material. It's what you already know about that client, assembled per interview rather than reconstructed each time from six places.
Try it
Walk through it yourself
This is the actual shape of the workflow — the same trigger, the same steps, the same draft waiting for your say-so. Click through it.
Send interview prep packs
Afternoon build, 15:00
Runs early enough that a gap can still be chased with the client before the end of the day. Deliberately a sweep rather than something that fires on booking — a pack built the moment an interview is arranged would be stale by the time it's needed.
What it does
Find tomorrow's interviews and what each one is
4 interviews. 2 video, 1 on site, 1 panel final. Joining links present on both video invites. Stage and format read from the entries.
Google CalendarPull the interviewer and format details out of the threads
Interviewers named for 3 of 4. Northgate's panel was agreed on a call and never confirmed in writing — three names unknown.
GmailGather the client-specific material you already hold
Role briefs for all 4. Wexley's site notes exist but have no entrance or parking detail, which Nadia specifically asked about last time.
Google DriveDraft a pack per candidate, and flag what's missing
4 packs drafted. 2 complete. Nadia's flagged for entrance detail, Fiona's held pending panel names — with a chase to Northgate drafted too.
Gmail
Draft document — nothing has been sent
Rahul Kapoor — Calder Rail tech screen — tomorrow 11:00
- Format
- 60 min video, 1 interviewer
- Sent
- Day before, 15:00
- Gaps
- None
In the pack
- Zoom joining link, taken from the invite already accepted — not a new one.
- Interviewer: Sam Iredale, Principal Engineer. Two lines on his background and how long he's been there.
- Format: 60 minutes, roughly 40 on system design and 20 for your questions. No take-home at this stage.
- Role brief attached, plus the two things this team asked the last candidate about.
Practical detail
- Confirmed 11:00 UK time — worth stating since Rahul is currently in Dublin two days a week.
- Sam has run this stage twice before, and both people we sent described it as conversational rather than a whiteboard test.
Not included, on purpose
- No coaching on what to say and no suggested answers. Preparation is information, not a script.
- Nothing about other candidates in the process, and no view about how Rahul is likely to do.
Send the 2 complete packs and chase Northgate for the panel names?
The complete ones usually go as written. The value of reading them is the gaps — Nadia's entrance question and Northgate's missing panel are both things you can still fix this afternoon and can't fix at nine tomorrow.
Sent, with the gaps chased while there's still time
The packs go from your mailbox the afternoon before. What's missing goes to the client as a short question rather than being sent to the candidate half-complete. Anything you learn — the side entrance, the format of a particular screen — is kept against that client, so the next candidate's pack already has it.
Nobody arrives cold.
Assembled from what you already know about that client. You read it and send.
How it works
What it's actually doing
Gathering what's already scattered and noticing what isn't there yet, early enough that the second part is still fixable.
- 1
- Google Calendar
- OuOutlook
Reads tomorrow's interviews and what each one is
Stage, format, video or on site, and how long. All from the calendar entries you already made rather than a separate list to maintain.
- 2
- Gmail
- OuOutlook
Finds the detail across the threads
Interviewer names, formats agreed on calls, changes made last week. Most of what a candidate needs was mentioned somewhere and never gathered.
- 3
- Google Drive
- GoGoogle Docs
Reuses what you know about the client
The side entrance, the take-home, the fact that this team always asks about incident response. Learned once, kept against the account, in every future pack.
- 4
- Gmail
- ZoZoom
Flags gaps while they're still fixable
A missing panel list at three o'clock is an email. At 08:55 tomorrow it's an apology. That timing difference is most of the value here.
It assembles information. It doesn't coach anybody.
Preparation and coaching are different things, and the line matters. Telling a candidate the format, who they're meeting and where the door is levels the playing field. Telling them what to say does not, and it produces interviews that mislead the client and candidates who get placed into jobs they can't do.
Step one
It drafts
Step two — you
You read it and approve
Step three
Only then does it send
No suggested answers, ever
Packs contain information about the interview, not scripts for it. What a candidate says should be theirs, or the client is assessing your prep rather than the person.
Nothing incomplete goes to a candidate
A pack with unknown panel members is held and the gap is chased. Half a pack is worse than none, because it looks like the whole thing.
It never shares other candidates' information
Nothing about who else is in the process, how many, or how they did. That's confidential to them and none of it helps.
Every pack is read before it goes
These arrive the day before something that matters to somebody's career. A wrong address or a stale link is a real cost to a real person.
Setup
What setting this up involves
- 1
Connect
- Google Calendar or Outlook — where interviews are already booked
- Gmail or Outlook, to find interviewer and format detail in threads
- Google Drive, holding role briefs and client site notes
- Zoom or Google Meet, to read the joining link already on the invite
- 2
Tell it how you work
- What a pack should contain, by interview type — video, on site, panel
- How far ahead to send, and how far ahead to build so gaps can be chased
- Which client-specific details to keep on file and reuse
- What counts as a blocking gap versus something worth sending without
- Your tone — some desks send a short message, others a formatted document
- 3
Then it runs
About 30 minutes, once
Most of it is defining what goes in a pack per interview type. The client-specific notes build themselves over time, and after a couple of months your packs contain things no template would have known to include.
Edge cases
Where it's careful, and what it won't do
What it handles
An interview moved after the pack was built
The build re-checks the calendar before sending, so a time changed at four o'clock doesn't go out as tomorrow's confirmed slot at half past.
A candidate in a different time zone
Times are stated with the zone made explicit where the candidate isn't in the same one, which is the single most common cause of somebody joining an hour late.
Detail learned the hard way
The visitor entrance on the side street, the reception that needs 24 hours' notice for a pass. Recorded against the client once and included in every pack after that.
A second interview with the same client
The pack doesn't repeat everything the candidate already read for stage one. It leads with what's different — new interviewer, new format, what changed.
What it does not do
Coach the candidate
Information, never scripts. No suggested answers, no rehearsal, no guidance on what this client wants to hear.
Create a new meeting link
It reads the link already on the accepted invite. Generating a fresh one risks sending a candidate somewhere the interviewer isn't.
Send an incomplete pack
Missing panel names or a missing address hold the pack and trigger a chase to the client instead.
Share anything about other candidates
How many people are in the process, or how anyone else did, stays confidential. It also wouldn't help.
Time back
Two to four hours a week, and candidates who aren't caught out
- Time back
- 2–4 hrs a week
- Spent on
- Interviews that go properly
- What it costs
- $19 / monthStarterplan — see what’s included
How that’s worked out: Based on eight to twelve interviews a week at roughly ten minutes to assemble a proper pack from six different places. The number that doesn't appear here is the one that matters most: a strong candidate who interviews badly because nobody told them the format is a placement lost for a reason entirely inside your control.
Fair questions
The questions consultants ask first
Isn't prepping candidates this thoroughly a bit close to coaching?
There's a real line and it sits between information and scripts. Telling someone the interview is sixty minutes with a principal engineer and mostly system design is information the client would happily share if asked — it removes an artificial disadvantage that has nothing to do with capability. Telling them what to say about their last project is coaching, and none of that is in here, because it produces interviews that mislead the client and candidates placed into jobs they can't do.
Our clients don't tell us the format or who's interviewing.
Then the most valuable output isn't the pack, it's the gap list — which is the thing that gets you into the habit of asking. Most clients will tell you if asked at three the day before; almost none volunteer it. And once a client has answered for one candidate, it's kept against the account and reused, so the question gets asked less often over time rather than more.
Won't this send stale information if something changes late?
The calendar is re-checked immediately before sending, so a time or link changed that afternoon is caught. What it can't catch is a change nobody records anywhere — if a client swaps the interviewer by phone and tells no one, no tool will know. That's also why the packs go from your mailbox with you having read them, rather than firing unattended.
More off the same desk
Other things that keep falling off the list
Schedule and reschedule interviews
The overlap across three diaries found for you, and when a decline lands, replacement times drafted while there's still a day left to save.
Write up interview notes
The write-up drafted from the recording, in your format, quoting what was actually said — so notes exist while you still remember the call.
Chase candidate availability
Every candidate sitting on an availability request gets a nudge with real slots in it, before the client's window closes and you have to ask for new ones.
Chase hiring manager feedback
Every interview with no feedback after 48 hours gets a nudge drafted to the client, and you get one list of what's outstanding across the desk.
Collect compliance documents
Every starter's paperwork tracked in one grid, with the chases drafted — so you find the gap three weeks out, not the night before.
The same preparation problem elsewhere
FAQ
Questions worth answering properly
What goes in a prep pack?
Whatever you define per interview type, typically the joining link or address, who they're meeting and a couple of lines about them, the format and length, and the role brief. Client-specific detail you've learned — the side entrance, whether there's a take-home — gets added automatically once it's on file.
Does it tell candidates what to say?
No. Packs contain information about the interview, never suggested answers or rehearsal. Coaching produces interviews that mislead the client, and it's the fastest route to placing somebody into a job they can't actually do.
What happens when a detail is missing?
The pack is held and a short question goes to the client instead. Building at three in the afternoon rather than eight the next morning is deliberate — a missing panel list is an email today and an apology tomorrow.
Does it create the video link?
No, it reads the one already on the accepted invite. Generating a new link risks sending a candidate to an empty meeting while the interviewer waits in the original — a failure that's both avoidable and very hard to recover from at 11:00.
How does it know client-specific things like where to park?
You record it once, usually the first time a candidate rings you from the wrong door. After that it's kept against the account and appears in every pack for that client, which is how the packs end up containing things no generic template would know.
Can it send without me reading it?
We'd advise against it and the default is that you approve. These land the day before something that matters to somebody's career, and a wrong address or a stale time is a real cost to a real person — it's worth the thirty seconds.
Make sure nobody walks in cold
Connect your calendar and mailbox, and say what a pack should contain. Tomorrow's interviews are packed by this afternoon.
Start free