Interview scorecard templates are tools that help you assess candidate skills during the interview process. They help you make unbiased, data-driven decisions through collaborative efforts among your hiring team. You can use these templates by rating candidates on predefined skills and making notes during the interviews.
Interviewing candidates is no less than a mind-boggling game of ‘Guess who?’ for recruiters.
While the interviews might go smoothly, the real challenge comes afterwards, when you’re trying to recall specific details about each candidate.
“Was it Sarah who talked about her SEO expertise, or was it Mark?”
The truth is, remembering all the details without something to rely on is a recipe for confusion.
That’s where interview scorecards come in. Read on to see how you can use them to streamline your hiring process and eliminate the guesswork.
What is an interview scorecard?
An interview scorecard is an evaluation tool used to assess a candidate’s key skills, competencies, and overall suitability during their interview.
It helps you rate the candidate on a predefined set of skills that are required for the vacancy or your company.
Using scorecards lets you make data-driven decisions, reduce bias, and ensure a more transparent and fair hiring process. This ultimately leads to better hires and a more streamlined recruitment experience.
What are the benefits of using an interview scorecard template?
1. Makes your hiring process objective
An interview scorecard provides you with a standardized way to evaluate every client who applies for the same vacancy.
Instead of relying on your gut feelings or personal preferences, these scorecard templates allow you to rate the candidates on predefined skills.
This systematically makes your hiring process more objective and ensures all candidates are assessed fairly, making your recruitment free of unconscious bias.
In fact, a study by the Harvard Business Review suggests that structured interviews that use scorecards are significantly more effective at predicting job performance and enhancing the objectivity of hiring decisions.
2. Helps with data-driven decision making
The best advantage of using interview scorecards is that they help you quantify candidate assessments. This makes it easier for you and your recruitment team to compare candidates and make more informed decisions, rather than relying on intuition alone.
Over time, this data can be analyzed to identify patterns, predict hiring success, and refine the recruitment process for better outcomes.
3. Enhances internal validity
Once you have completed all interviews, you and your recruitment team can review the interview scorecards and reach a consensus on the best candidate.
This way, you can make your hiring process more collaborative and fair.
You can further enhance these discussions and review sessions by noting down real-time observations during the interviews.
4. Improves your hiring criteria
Interview scorecards can help you create realistic job criteria by spotting patterns in the talent pool.
For example, if most candidates consistently perform poorly on predefined skills, it may indicate that your job criteria are not well aligned with the talent pool.
By identifying such patterns, you can adjust the job criteria to align with the skills available in the market.
5. Reduces time-to-hire
Interview scorecards follow a structured approach to evaluating candidates, making your decision-making process quick and efficient.
As it reduces subjectivity and encourages collaboration, identifying top candidates becomes easier, reducing your time-to-hire.
How to use an interview scorecard template?
Hiring with an interview scorecard template is simple. All you need to have is good evaluative and observational skills.
Let us understand how you can use these scorecards with a simple example.
Suppose you are interviewing a candidate for a marketing manager role, your scorecard template would look something like this:
| Criteria | Description of the skill | Rating scale | Candidate rating | Interview notes |
| Communication skills | Ability to articulate ideas | 1(poor)-5(excellent) | 4 | Clear and concise, needs improvement in handling complex questions |
| Problem-solving skills | Ability to come up with new solutions | 1(poor)-5(excellent) | 5 | Excellent problem solver, was able to provide innovative solutions to the case study |
| Leadership skills | The capability to lead and motivate a team | 1(poor)-5(excellent) | 3 | Good potential, but has no prior experience in team management |
| Marketing skills | Experience in developing marketing strategies | 1(poor)-5(excellent) | 4 | Has experience in digital marketing campaigns |
| Technical skills | Proficiency in using marketing tools | 1(poor)-5(excellent) | 4 | Experienced with Google Analytics and SEO |
| Cultural fitness | How well the candidate aligns with the company’s values and culture. | 1(poor)-5(excellent) | 4 | Strong cultural fit. Passionate about innovation, which aligns with our company values |
| Overall Recommendation | Final decision | 1(reject)-5(hire) | 4 | Recommended for hire. Strong candidate with room for growth. |
As you can see, your job as an interviewer is to fill in the last two columns: candidate rating and interview notes.
Using your observational and questioning skills, you can rate your candidates on the scale provided in the scorecard.
If you happen to notice any critical observation that can further explain your candidate rating, you can write it down in the last column titled “interview notes”.
Get your FREE interview scorecard template!
Ready to improve your candidate evaluations?
We’re sharing a free interview scorecard PDF with sample templates you can use for your hiring team.
If you’re looking for something you can put to immediate use, download our interview sheet template that you can customize for your hiring needs.
What are some expert tips for using interview scorecards?
1. Customize your scorecards for different job roles
Every role requires a different set of skills, and therefore, one scorecard would never be enough for you to hire for multiple roles.
You must make it your habit to update and customize your scorecard templates before you begin with your interviews.
Once you’ve created a role-specific scorecard, you can easily reuse it every time you hire for that position.
2. Review and update scorecards regularly
Your hiring needs will always evolve, and therefore, your scorecards should too.
You need to review them regularly to ensure they continue to align with the skills, values, and competencies you are seeking.
Keep an eye out for irrelevant elements (such as outdated job criteria) to ensure your hiring process is accurate and fair.
3. Learn writing skills
Taking notes during the interview process is a skill in itself.
You need to learn basic writing and summarizing techniques so you do not miss any important details when filling out your interview scorecard template.
These skills also improve your ability to frame open-ended questions on the spot, which can help you assess the candidate more accurately.
4. Train yourself and your team
While using interview scorecards doesn’t require technical skills, you must never underestimate them.
Without any prior training, it can become challenging to understand how to score objectively, recognize recruiters’ bias, and interpret results correctly.
By training yourself and your team, you can ensure that every interviewer evaluates all candidates the same way.
5. Explain scorecards to your candidates
If you’re planning to fill out the scorecards during the interview, it’s better to let the candidate know about it.
If you don’t, they might assume you’re distracted or not paying attention. This can create a bad impression of your employer brand.
By providing your candidates with an explanation, you can build their trust and give them a positive candidate experience.
Interview scorecard template FAQs
1. When to use an interview scorecard?
You should use an interview scorecard during every interview to ensure consistency and objectivity. It helps you assess candidates based on predefined criteria, making it easier to compare and make informed decisions. After the interviews, you can compare the candidates based on their scorecards and make an evidence-based decision.
2. Why should I use a scorecard instead of free-form notes?
Scorecards offer a structured approach to evaluating candidates, which makes it easy to stay objective during the hiring process. Unlike free-form notes, which can be vague and inconsistent, scorecards focus on skills that are directly tied to the role. They also provide clear, documented evidence to support your decisions. This structure helps you make an accurate hiring decision.
3. Who should fill out the scorecard?
It is always the interviewer who fills out the scorecard. If multiple interviewers are present, each one should complete their own scorecard. Later, these scorecards can be compared to make a collaborative decision.
4. Should all candidates be evaluated with the same scorecard?
Yes, you should use the same scorecard for all candidates applying for the same role. You must do this to ensure that everyone is evaluated against the same criteria.
However, you cannot use the same scorecard to evaluate candidates who are applying for different roles, requiring different skills.
5. What should the rating scale look like?
The rating scale should be simple and easy to understand. Usually, the rating scale for interview scorecards ranges from 1 to 5, where 1 indicates “poor” performance and 5 indicates “excellent” rating. Whatever rating scale you choose, make sure to define what each number means to keep evaluations consistent across interviewers.
Summary
- An interview scorecard is a candidate assessment tool that helps you rate and compare candidates’ skills in a hiring process.
- Interview scorecards offer several benefits, including making your hiring process more objective, enabling data-driven decision-making, enhancing internal validity, refining your job criteria, and reducing time-to-hire.
- The blog provides the reader with a free interview scorecard template and an example of how to use it.
- It is important to customize and review your interview scorecards, receive proper training, and learn writing skills before using them.
