In this article, we cover:
Create message templates to cover a wide area of common candidate communication, from availability to onsite interview prep. Message templates are a convenient and effective way to standardize team-wide communication with candidates. Here is how to get started!
Creating a message template
Creating a message template is simple. Any member, manager, or admin in your Guide organization can create Message templates.
From the Guide Dashboard, navigate to Templates by clicking Templates in the navigation menu.
Next, click on the tab along the top of the page labeled Message templates.
Find and click the large button labeled New message template.
You will be prompted to provide a name for your new message template and, optionally, assign your template to a department. Once you’ve completed this step, hit Continue.
The following dialog window is the Guide Messenger, where you can compose your message template. When building your message template, you have access to all the same tools and features available when writing Guide messages on the go – images, interview schedule, text formatting, event tokens – it's all there.
Once you’re happy with your message, hit the Create button to save your template.
Messages you send with Guide are more than text-based emails like you may be used to in Greenhouse. Guide allows you to craft messages with formatted text, add pictures and videos, and embed rich elements such as an interview schedule or an availability request.
Personalize message templates with Tokens
Tokens are a powerful way to transform your message template into an opportunity to deliver a personalized candidate experience. Tokens are a pre-defined set of variables that, when used in the body of a message, will be replaced with their value just before sending. For example, you could use a token referencing the first name of your candidate in the opening line of your message. When you use the template, Guide will replace the token with the first name of your candidate automatically.
You can add a token to a message template in one of two ways:
Option 1: Click the
{$}icon located in the toolbar at the bottom of your messageOption 2: With your cursor blinking in the message window, type
$.
Either of these options will pull up the list of available tokens. Find the one that works for you. Once added, the token will appear as a small yellow block in your message. You can click on this block to understand more about the token and, in some cases, even make some changes to have the token should behave (ex: displaying only the last name of a candidate).
Managing message templates
A complete list of your message templates can be found in the Guide Dashboard. Navigate to Templates → Message Templates. Here you will find a table with all your company's message templates. There are a few options available for filtering the list, including:
Search for templates by name
Filter by department
Filter by status: active or archived
Each row of the table represents a single message template. You can use the table's column headers to sort by name or by templates created or edited more recently. Clicking a row of the table will open the message template editor, where you can make changes to the content of the message template. Options for message templates are available by clicking the ... icon at the end of the row. Options include:
Duplicate: Create a copy of the message template
Edit: Open the message template editor and make changes
Settings: Update the message template settings (name, department)
Archive: Archive the message template.
Archive message templates can always be found by filtering the message templates table. Archived message templates will not appear when browsing message templates for use in the Guide Messenger.
Use a message template in a message
Save time when sending a message by using a message template. It's easy. From the Guide Messenger, locate and click the Use a template button. This will pull up a new window where you can browse a complete collection of all your message templates.
Along the left-hand side of the window are your message templates. Filters and a quick search are available at the top to assist you in finding that perfect template. Select a template, and you can preview the contents of the template in the panel to the right. The preview will even replace any tokens with their actual value, so you can see exactly what your candidate will see.
Once you've found the template you'd like to use, press the Use template button. And that's it! The Guide Messenger will be replaced with the contents pre-defined by the message template.
Importing Greenhouse email templates to Guide
We automatically import all your email templates from your company’s Greenhouse account into your Guide account. Email templates are imported as Guide message templates. When importing, we will use the same name and, to the best of our abilities, preserve the content and formatting of the original email template. Discrepancies will be visible when you use the message template so that you can manually resolve them.
Here are some important things to note with regard to how Guide handles Greenhouse email templates:
Message templates imported from Greenhouse share the same name.
Greenhouse Email Templates Types are imported to Guide as message template Types.
By default, we will assign your company as the owner of any Organization-Wide Templates in Greenhouse.
For any template owned by a user account in Greenhouse, we will attempt to assign the same owner for the corresponding message template in Guide.
Tokens in Greenhouse email templates will be preserved in Guide message templates and, where available, mapped to their corresponding Guide Tokens.
Unsupported tokens will be highlighted in red when using the message template, allowing you to manually update the message with the correct value before you send it.
NOTE: Guide does not support private message templates. Personal Greenhouse email templates, created by you, are publicly visible and available to your entire organization in Guide.