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Recruitment Workflow Optimization: Status Mapping & Integrating with MS Bookings & Gmail

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Posted on by ShaneCaalaman

Hello! I'm very new to Power Automate and I'm assigned to optimized our recruitment flow. I have some automation experience but using Airtable. I'm having a hard time adjusting because Power Autimate is much more complicated. I tried searching for youtube tutorials but I can't find flow that is similar to what I have in mind.

So I have 5 status columns.

1. Recruitment Stage - I want this column to be the main trigger when a candidate is going to be notified of their application status. But the status on this column will depend on what's the status for the following columns.

2. Screening Decision - This column is where I indicate if an applicant will be advancing to the Round 1 interview or not. I have 3 options here: Pass, Failed, TBD.

This is where I'm struggling. What I want is when the screening decision is 'Pass', recruitment stage is 'For Round 1' then candidate is notified thru email. If screening decision is 'Failed', Recruitment Stage is 'Screening: Failed' then candidate is notified after 24 hours. If screening decision is 'TBD', Recruitment Status is 'TBD'. The same flow applies to the other columns...

3 & 4. Round 1 Decision & Round 2 Decision - I have 5 options: Pass, Fail, TBD, No Show, Reschedule. Same thing here, for each of these statuses, I want a counterpart status in the recruitment stage column that will trigger specific email notification based on what stage the candidate is.

5. JO Decision - I have 3 options: Accepted, Rejected, TBD.

Aside from what's mentioned above, I also want the Recruitment Stage column connected to Microsoft bookings. Here's the flow I have in mind (and what I meant by that):
When Candidate A books an interview appointment (let's say Round 1), there's an automation that will pull important details from bookings such as time and date of the interview, assigned interviewer, team link, etc. It will then plot those information in Candidate A's row in Sharepoint list. And then the Recruitment Stage column will be updated to "Round 1: Scheduled".

Please let me know if this flow is possible or if there's a better approach.

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Building flows

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David_MA 12,966 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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I don't fully understand what you want to do, but this is some advice I can offer:

Map out your process and what you need to accomplish with your workflows. Do not constrain yourself to trying to jam everything into one workflow. Look for ways to break the process into logical chunks of work and build a workflow to do each chunk. This is important, because once a flow is triggered, it must complete within 30 days or it will time out.

Look at your status columns to leverage as trigger conditions to start a workflow. If you are not familiar with trigger conditions, this blog post will help: Power Automate Trigger Conditions made EASY - Power Platform Community (microsoft.com).

Think about steps that need to happen only when a new item is created, and ones that occur when the list item is updated and add trigger conditions so they only trigger at the correct time.

Most times when you use the trigger When an item is modified, you will want to update something in the list so that the flow does not trigger again when it is updated. You will also need to prevent infinite loops when you do update the item after it is triggered. This has tips for preventing infinite loops: How to avoid infinite trigger loop in Power Automate (tomriha.com).

If you have access to premium connectors, you can use the action When an HTTP request is received action and call another flow from within a flow. This can eliminate the need for trigger conditions since you control calling it from within another flow. You can read how this works at Power Automate: When an HTTP request is received Trigger - Manuel T. Gomes (manueltgomes.com). Note, you need to keep in mind that the flow you call will need to be called within the 30-day windows that the running flow has to complete. However, when you call the next flow, that starts its own 30-day window before it expires.

Here is one flow you could have for the screening decision is 'Pass' and recruitment stage is 'For Round 1' you want to notify the candidate is thru email.

Create a flow that use the trigger, When an item or file is modified

Add three trigger conditions. With trigger conditions, all must evaluate to true to trigger the flow:

Screening Decision = Pass

Recruitment Stage = For Round 1

And Candidate Notified = false, which you will update to true with the flow runs so that it is not triggered again.

Good luck. And don't forget to review the training materials Microsoft created at Browse all courses, learning paths, and modules - Training | Microsoft Learn. It has lots of short "courses" to get you up to speed. You can also look into joining the Microsoft Power Up program: Microsoft Power Up Program for career switchers

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ShaneCaalaman 7 on at

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Hi David! I appreciate the advice.

I finally figured out a solution for this
@ShaneCaalaman wrote:
This is where I'm struggling. What I want is when the screening decision is 'Pass', recruitment stage is 'For Round 1' then candidate is notified thru email. If screening decision is 'Failed', Recruitment Stage is 'Screening: Failed' then candidate is notified after 24 hours. If screening decision is 'TBD', Recruitment Status is 'TBD'. The same flow applies to the other columns...
The trigger I used is 'When an item or a file is modified', my next step is 'Get changes for an item or a file (properties only)', in the step configuration, it's asking for Since and Until so I used 'Trigger Window Start Token' and 'Trigger Window End Token' respectively.
My next action is 'Switch' and in the Parameter tab, I used Screening Decision Value as basis for the switch. From there, I was able to add multiple cases and specific action for each case. Here's what I did
I haven't figured out the email notification piece yet but i plan to create that in a different flow.

The automation is working, but I encountered another issue. Whenever I update the Screening Decision, the Recruitment Stage column is not updated immediately. There's a delay... I have to reload my Sharepoint list multiple times before I can see the counter part status in the Recruitment Stage Column.

I don't know what's causing this delay. Is this has something to do with how I set up my flow? I saw in this post that delays are to be expected since a lot of people use power automate. Is this what's happening in this case?

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David_MA 12,966 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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I don't really follow what you are saying here:

The automation is working, but I encountered another issue. Whenever I update the Screening Decision, the Recruitment Stage column is not updated immediately. There's a delay... I have to reload my Sharepoint list multiple times before I can see the counter part status in the Recruitment Stage Column.

How is the screening decision being updated? Is it being done by another workflow? If a workflow is updating it, then yes, it can take some time for the workflow to trigger. Depending on how busy the environment is where the workflow is located, it can vary depending on the license you have. People with premium licenses will have priority over people with the regular M365 license, and workflows with a license just for that flow will take precedence over flows running on a premium license.

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ShaneCaalaman 7 on at

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Hello David! No, the screening decision column is updated manually. So I guess, it might have something to do with the license that we have? We're using Microsoft Business Standard.

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David_MA 12,966 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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To confirm, when you say update manually, you go into the list, put it in edit mode, update the item and save it? If you are manually updating the field in the list, I don't see how there would be a delay. That is not something I have ever experienced.

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ShaneCaalaman 7 on at

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Yes... so in my SharePoint list, I would click the 'edit in grid view.' From there, I would update the screening stage column manually. If I'm only editing one row, I would exit the the grid view. But there's no change in the Recruitment Stage Column.

Even if I don't edit in the grid view and edit a row by clicking the 'add comment' button and update the column via a pop up box (im not sure what this is called), there is still a delay. I have to reload the SharePoint list so the correct status would reflect.

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