Set up interview stages

Last updated: June 19, 2026

Stages are the pipeline — the steps every candidate moves through, from new to hired. Setting them up defines your process once, so the team works the same way and candidates get a consistent experience. Vouch handles the interview scheduling and the move-stage messages for you, but people do the interviewing — Vouch never runs an AI interview.

When to use it. During setup, to lay out your process; and any time it changes — adding a take-home stage, folding two rounds into one, swapping interviewers.

Where: listing → Settings → Edit interview stages.

Stages are the steps a candidate moves through. Some are system stages (fixed name and purpose); others are custom stages you name yourself.

Open a stage to edit it (Edit stage: …). At the top: a Color and, for custom stages, a Stage name and Purpose. Then three tabs:

Interview Settings

Include interview — Yes / No ("Should candidates be interviewed in this stage?").
When on: Interview duration (minutes), Interview guide (rich text), and Interviewers.
For interviewers, pick one or more people; set one as Host. "If empty, the message sender is the interviewer by default." An interviewer must have a connected calendar (otherwise it's disabled: "Calendar not connected."). With more than one interviewer you choose a Type of event: Group interview or Random (Round robin) (round robin is marked "Coming soon").

Communications Settings

Notify candidate — Yes / No ("Generate a message to the candidate when they are moved to this stage.").
When on: What to communicate to the candidate, and Example messages or templates used to guide the generated message.

Other settings

Quick proceed stage and Quick reject stage — the default next/reject stages that appear as quick-action buttons when you're viewing candidates in this stage.

Save each stage with Save changes.

Good to know. The Interview guide is what the meeting assistant (transcription bot) steers the conversation notes and evaluation around — the more specific it is, the more useful the write-up. And setting Quick proceed / Quick reject stages turns moving candidates into one click from the board.

Troubleshooting

An interviewer is greyed out ("Calendar not connected"). Vouch can't book on a calendar it can't see. Have that person connect their calendar, then add them — see Connect your Google Calendar.

No interviewer selected. That's fine — "If empty, the message sender is the interviewer by default," so the person moving the candidate becomes the interviewer.