A practical, hands‑on guide from someone who rebuilt their company’s hiring process with Breezy HR — the exact steps I followed, the mistakes I made, and what you can copy verbatim.
When I first became responsible for hiring at my company, our process was held together with spreadsheets, hopeful Slack messages, and a lot of frantic calendar ping‑pong. Candidates waited days for feedback, interviewers forgot to submit scorecards, and offers were delayed while we chased approvals. Switching to Breezy HR didn’t solve every problem overnight, but a careful, experience‑driven setup turned hiring from chaos into a repeatable, measurable process. This article walks you through everything I did — from the pre‑setup checklist to templates, automations, and the rollout plan — written like I’m sitting next to you showing the exact clicks and decisions I made.
Why I chose Breezy HR (and why you might too)
Before committing, I tested multiple applicant tracking systems. My criteria were simple and non‑negotiable: an intuitive interface for non‑technical hiring managers, strong calendar/scheduling features, visual pipelines, and fast set‑up. Breezy hit those marks.
From day one, the thing that stood out was how quickly people adapted. I could invite a hiring manager, show them one screen, and they’d start reviewing candidates. The visual pipeline made bottlenecks obvious, and once calendar sync worked, interview scheduling was no longer a time sink. If you’re a small to mid‑sized team or a startup where adoption matters more than enterprise complexity, Breezy is a very pragmatic choice.
What to gather before you log into Breezy (my pre‑setup checklist)
Set aside 30–60 minutes to collect the following — having these ready will save you a lot of time:
- Branding assets: logo (png), short company description (1 paragraph), 2–3 photos showing team or office.
- People list: names, emails and titles of admins, hiring managers and interviewers.
- Job templates: drafts for the first roles you’ll post, including compensation ranges and hiring manager names.
- Pipeline map: a whiteboard sketch or document describing your desired interview stages and handoffs.
- Integration list: which calendar (Google/Outlook), HRIS (Gusto, BambooHR), and assessment or background check providers you’ll use.
- Hiring owner: designate one person responsible for the initial setup and rollout communications.
When I started, omitting the careers page content cost me an afternoon — I had to redo job postings after updating brand copy. Don’t skip that step.
Step‑by‑step setup (the exact sequence I followed)
I recommend this sequence because it reduces backtracking and permission errors:
- Create account & select plan
- Complete company settings & branding
- Invite core users and set roles
- Build pipelines and stage automations
- Create job templates and publish pilot roles
- Connect calendars and test scheduling
- Add automations, templates and scorecards
- Integrate assessments, background checks and HRIS
- Train the team and run a pilot
- Measure, iterate and scale
I’ll unpack each step and share practical tips I learned the hard way.
1. Create your account & choose the right plan
Use a company email (careers@ or hr@) — it looks professional in candidate communication and lets you centralize messages. Start with a free trial if available, but plan which paid features you’ll enable: onboarding, calendar sync, SMS, assessment integrations and background checks often live in premium tiers.
When selecting a plan, think about your hiring velocity. If you hire infrequently, a basic plan might be fine. If you plan to scale with automated workflows, pick the tier that includes automation credits and integrations you’ll need.
2. Fill in company settings & brand the careers site
The careers page is often the first substantial interaction a candidate has with your company. Treat it like a landing page.
Set:
- Company name, timezone, and default recruiter email (I use careers@[company].com). Timezone mistakes cause a lot of scheduling confusion — set this correctly from the start.
- Upload your logo and a short mission paragraph.
- Add benefits, perks, and a short diversity & inclusion statement.
I wrote a short “What it’s like to work here” paragraph and added it to every job post; that alone increased qualified applicants for culture‑fit roles.
3. Invite users and map roles carefully
Early on, be conservative with Admin permissions. I restricted offer creation and billing to one or two admins to prevent accidental offers or approval bypasses.
User groups I added:
- Admins: full settings and billing access (1–2 people).
- Recruiters: post jobs, manage pipelines and candidate communication.
- Hiring Managers: review candidates, invite interviews, and make recommendations.
- Interviewers: limited access to see candidate profiles and submit feedback.
Bulk user invites via CSV saved an hour for me — include email, first_name, last_name, role, team columns. Map people to teams so job posts auto‑populate the right interviewers.
4. Design hiring pipelines & automate stage actions
A pipeline is more than a visual queue; it’s your operational workflow.
I created two pipeline templates:
- Salaried roles: Sourced → Applied → Phone Screen → Take‑home Assignment → Technical Interview → Final Interview → Offer → Background Check → Hired.
- Hourly/Contract roles: Applied → Skills Check → Interview → Offer → Hired.
For each stage, write a one‑line definition (e.g., Phone Screen — 20 minutes; confirm role expectations, ask 3 qualification questions). This reduces ambiguity for interviewers.
Automations I configured early:
- Auto‑acknowledgement emails on application.
- Auto‑advance for clear pass/fail screening answers.
- Reminder nudges to interviewers if feedback isn’t submitted within 48 hours.
- Auto‑archive candidates after 30 days of inactivity with a re‑engagement message.
These small automations saved countless manual nudges and reduced time‑in‑stage dramatically.
5. Build job templates (reuse is everything)
I set up job templates for our common hires — engineering, sales, customer success. Each template included:
- Title, department, location (with remote/hybrid notes).
- Short opening paragraph that sells the role.
- Responsibilities, success criteria for the first 90 days, and required vs preferred skills.
- Interview plan and assessments.
A template prevents mistakes like missing hiring manager or wrong interviewers. Use private fields for compensation so only Admins see salary ranges.
6. Careers site and SEO basics for job posts
Don’t overlook SEO on job titles and summaries. Include location keywords and concise summaries.
Example: Senior Backend Engineer (Remote — US Eastern Time) helps both job boards and candidates search precisely. I also added a short bullet list of benefits and a one‑line on how long the hiring process takes; candidates appreciate transparency.
7. Application form design & screening questions
Less is more. Ask only what you need to qualify.
Our form includes:
- Resume/portfolio upload (required)
- LinkedIn/GitHub (optional)
- 3 targeted screening questions (mix of Y/N & short answer)
Sample developer screening questions:
- What’s the most recent production issue you solved and how did you fix it? (short answer)
- Which languages have you used in the last 12 months? (checkboxes)
- Are you authorized to work in [country]? (Yes/No)
Screening questions helped us move unqualified candidates to an early rejection automatically and saved interview time.
8. Calendar sync & interview scheduling — the game changer
Connecting Google Workspace calendars transformed scheduling. Once connected:
- Interviewers’ availability is checked automatically.
- Candidates can pick from time slots without email ping‑pong.
- I used 15‑minute padding to prevent back‑to‑back burnout.
Test the flow with your team before going live — rejigger default availability and meeting length to match real interviewer preferences.
9. Scorecards and interview kits to reduce bias
I created standardized scorecards with anchors for 1, 3 and 5 (e.g., 5 = exceptional, 3 = solid competent, 1 = insufficient). Categories included Technical Skill, Problem Solving, Communication, Cultural Fit and Overall Recommendation.
Attach an interview kit to each stage with suggested questions and the focus for scoring. Standardizing this made calibration sessions concrete and reduced opinion‑based decisions.
10. Integrations: assessments, background checks and HRIS
We integrated a coding assessment tool for engineering hires and a role play/assessment for sales. Candidate results piped into profiles so interviewers could see performance in one place.
Background checks were initiated only after offer acceptance and e‑signature. HRIS integration pushed accepted hire details to payroll so HR didn’t have to retype shared data.
Test every integration with a dry run. I once mis‑mapped the start date field to a different format, which delayed onboarding — a painful lesson that’s easy to avoid with a test.
Practical templates I used (copy/paste friendly)
I used a small set of templates that saved us hours and made candidates feel respected.
Application acknowledgement:
Subject: Thanks for applying to [Company]
Hi {{first_name}},
Thanks for applying to the {{job_title}} role. We’ll review your application and get back to you within 7 business days. If you have questions, reply to this email.
— [Recruiter Name]
Phone screen invite:
Subject: Quick chat about the {{job_title}} role
Hi {{first_name}},
I’d like to schedule a 20–30 minute phone screen to learn more about your experience. Please pick a time here: [scheduling link].
— [Recruiter Name]
Rejection after interview:
Subject: Update on your application for {{job_title}}
Hi {{first_name}},
Thank you for meeting with us. We’ve decided to move forward with other candidates, but we appreciate your time and will keep your profile on file.
Best wishes,
[Recruiter Name]
Short offer email:
Subject: Offer — {{job_title}} at [Company]
Hi {{first_name}},
We’re excited to offer you the role of {{job_title}}. Please see the attached offer letter for details and next steps. Reply with any questions.
Welcome,
[Hiring Manager]
Treat these templates as living documents — we revised language after candidate feedback and small A/B tests on subject lines.
Reporting: what I tracked and how I used it
Measure the things that point to process friction and quality.
Core metrics I tracked:
- Time to Fill — days from job approval to accepted offer.
- Time to Hire — days from first application to accepted offer.
- Source of Hire — job board, referral, LinkedIn.
- Stage conversion rates — percent moving from Phone Screen → Interview → Offer.
- Offer acceptance rate.
- Quality of hire — manager satisfaction at 30/90 days.
When I saw unusually long time‑in‑stage for Phone Screens, it pointed to interviewer capacity issues. We rebalanced interviewers and improved interviewer reminders — conversion improved within weeks.
Compliance, security and candidate privacy
Protect candidate data and reduce legal risk:
- Enforce 2FA for admin accounts.
- Limit exports to Admins only.
- Add GDPR consent language for EU applicants and a data deletion workflow.
- For background checks, include explicit consent steps and keep records of consent.
This made us trustworthy and reduced HR headaches later.
Rollout plan: how I got people to actually use Breezy
Tool adoption is the real hill to climb. My rollout plan:
- Pilot group: 3 hiring managers + recruiters for 6 weeks. Gather feedback and iterate.
- Playbook: a one‑page quick reference and a 10‑minute video walkthrough.
- Training: two 45‑minute live sessions and a recorded Q&A.
- Support: a dedicated Slack channel and weekly office hours for the first month.
- Share wins: a weekly hiring summary with time to hire improvements and new hires.
This plan turned hesitant managers into advocates because they saw actual improvements in time‑to‑hire.
Common mistakes I made (so you don’t have to)
- Overcomplicating the application form. Asking for too much up front reduced apply rates.
- Giving too many Admin permissions. We had one accidental offer drafted and sent — painful.
- Not testing integrations. A bad HRIS mapping once delayed start dates.
- Skipping a pilot. We launched company‑wide too quickly and had confusion about interview responsibilities.
Fixes: simplify forms, restrict permissions, test mappings, and pilot first.
Final checklist before you go live
- Company settings: name, timezone, logo, recruiter email set.
- Users invited and roles assigned (Admins minimized).
- Pipeline templates created and stage actions defined.
- Job templates ready with interview plans.
- Careers site content live and SEO basics checked.
- Calendars connected and scheduling tested.
- Scorecards and interview kits created.
- Automations for acknowledgements and reminders enabled.
- Assessments and background checks integrated and tested.
- Pilot completed and playbook distributed.
Closing thoughts (from my desk)
Setting up Breezy HR is more than clicking toggles — it’s an opportunity to bake repeatability and fairness into your hiring process. The first week after setup is always the hardest because people are changing habits. But if you follow a deliberate sequence — collect your assets, set roles, create templates, automate the obvious, and pilot with a small team — you’ll go from frantic hiring to a process that scales.
If you want, I can also:
- Generate shorter, SEO‑optimized versions of this post for different keywords.
- Export the templates I used as a downloadable ZIP (job descriptions, playbook, email templates).
- Create a 10‑minute training script you can use for live sessions.
Tell me which of those you want and I’ll add them to the canvas.
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