Key Takeaway
Aria works best when your team gives her the same context you would give a strong coordinator: clean interview plans, current templates, specific preferences, and clear review points for sensitive decisions.
What Aria Does
Aria helps recruiting teams move faster by handling scheduling work that usually takes context, clicks, and follow-up. With Aria 2.0, your team can delegate scheduling tasks, review suggested actions before they happen, answer questions when Aria needs more context, and keep candidates moving without losing control of the experience.
Aria can help with:
Requesting candidate availability and additional availability
Sending self-schedule requests and follow-ups
Finding interview times and handling interviewer conflicts
Rescheduling interviews and sending candidate confirmations
Scheduling debriefs
Keeping candidate portal stages aligned
Important to note: Candidates do not interact with Aria directly. Messages still use your Guide templates, sender settings, and normal candidate experience.
The Core Operating Principle
Treat Aria like a scheduling teammate who knows Guide, your ATS context, your templates, and your scheduling rules, but who may still need human judgment for exceptions.
Aria can:
Take action when the next step is clear
Ask a question when she needs more information
Request approval before completing sensitive actions
Follow saved preferences for messages, portal updates, debriefs, scheduling instructions, and conflict handling
Before You Start
Keep Jobs and Interview Plans Current
Aria depends on the same scheduling structure your team already uses in Guide:
Job stages
Interview plans
Interviewer requirements
Training or eligibility rules
Conference room or video requirements
Candidate portal stage behavior
If the underlying setup is out of date, Aria may need to ask more questions or surface suggestions that require more editing.
Review Your Message Templates
Aria uses your saved templates for candidate communication. Before rollout, review templates for:
Availability requests
Additional availability requests
Self-schedule requests
Follow-up messages
Candidate confirmations
Reschedule confirmations
Note: if these email templates are not selected during job set up, the user will have the opportunity to select them as they move candidates through each scheduling stage.
Add Specific Instructions
Capture preferences that are obvious to your team but not always obvious from calendars alone.
Examples:
Prefer morning onsite panels when possible.
Avoid scheduling final interviews on Fridays.
Use the hiring manager only as a last-resort replacement interviewer.
For this role, schedule the technical screen before the recruiter screen.
Use the candidate's timezone when suggesting options.
Avoid vague instructions like "schedule this efficiently." Aria already tries to do that. Specific constraints are more useful.
How Aria Works Day to Day
Aria May Ask Questions
If Aria does not have enough information to proceed confidently, she may ask a question instead of guessing.
This often happens when:
Scheduling requirements are ambiguous
Multiple scheduling options are reasonable
Candidate availability conflicts with interviewer availability
A replacement interviewer is needed
A debrief rule is unclear
A message needs human context before sending
Helpful answer:
Use Jamie as the replacement interviewer for this candidate. For future Backend Engineer panels, prefer Jamie before Taylor when both are available.
Aria Will Request Approval
Some actions may require approval before Aria proceeds. This gives your team a review point before candidate-facing messages, scheduling changes, or other important updates happen.
When reviewing an approval request, check:
Candidate name and role
Interview date, time, and timezone
Interviewers
Message content
Candidate portal stage updates
Any noted conflicts or trade-offs
You can approve, edit, or dismiss depending on what your team needs.
Best Practices
Start With a Small Rollout
Begin with one job, one recruiting team, or one high-volume workflow. Availability requests, self-schedule requests, candidate confirmations, and simple follow-ups are usually the easiest places to start.
Keep Complex Panels in Review at First
For multi-step panels, onsite loops, or roles with strict interviewer rules, keep a human review step while the team builds confidence.
Coordinators should review:
Interview order
Interviewer substitutions
Training requirements
Lunch or break placement
Candidate timezone
Room or video setup
Use Settings Instead of Repeating Yourself
If you keep giving Aria the same correction, save it as a setting or instruction.
Examples:
Change the default template
Update who messages are sent as
Adjust followers or CC behavior
Change when the candidate portal stage should update
Add scheduling instructions for a job or stage
Add conference room selection guidance
Configure debrief defaults
Be Specific When Correcting Aria
Specific corrections help Aria apply the same reasoning later.
Example of a helpful correction:
"Do not use Alex for this panel because they are still in training. Please use a fully trained interviewer for the system design interview."
Example of a less helpful correction:
"This interviewer is wrong."
Keep Candidate-Facing Quality High
Before approving candidate-facing messages, check that:
The tone matches your company's usual voice
The timing is clear
The candidate has an obvious next step
The correct scheduling link or availability request is included
The candidate portal will show the right stage
Recommended Rollout Plan
Timing | Focus | What to Do |
Week 1 | Observe and configure | Enable Aria for a small user group, confirm templates, review job setup, and collect repeated corrections. |
Week 2 | Use repeatable workflows | Use Aria for availability requests, self-schedule requests, confirmations, and follow-ups. Save repeated preferences into settings. |
Week 3+ | Expand carefully | Add panels, reschedules, and debriefs once review patterns are predictable. Decide which actions still need human approval. |
What Successful Teams Do
Teams tend to get the best results when they:
Keep job and interview plan setup clean
Use consistent templates
Give Aria specific instructions
Review complex scheduling before approval
Save repeated corrections as settings
Clarify who owns each workflow step
Treat Aria questions as a signal that more setup or context may be needed
When Something Looks Off
If Aria suggests something unexpected:
Check whether the job, stage, interview plan, or template is configured correctly.
Review whether the relevant preference exists in Aria settings.
Edit or dismiss the suggestion if needed.
Add a clearer instruction if the same issue could happen again.
Contact your Guide CSM or Guide support channel if the behavior seems incorrect.
Final Takeaway
Aria 2.0 works best when your team makes its preferences explicit and keeps the underlying scheduling setup clean. Start small, review sensitive decisions, save what you learn into settings, and expand once the workflow feels predictable.