Interview Notes: 9 Reasons To Take & Best Practices To Follow (+Free Templates)
54% of recruiters believe the quality of hires is their top concern. But how can you hire and retain the best fit for each role? It all starts with asking the right interview questions and, just as importantly, documenting them.
Interview notes are essential to the recruitment process — they help recruiters and hiring managers accurately recall details of candidate interviews. Recording interview notes can also help mitigate biases and support fair decision-making during the hiring process. As an HR professional, you can also use interview notes to benchmark best practices based on successful hires.
Contents
What are interview notes?
9 reasons you should take interview notes
When to take interview notes
Techniques for taking comprehensive interview notes
Free interview notes templates
Post-interview notes: Best practices
What are interview notes?
Interview notes are detailed records of the interactions between interviewers and candidates. They can help recruiters and hiring managers refresh their memory before making important hiring decisions instead of relying on gut instinct, which can lead to biases.
These notes typically include observations, responses, and key points discussed during interviews, ensuring that HR’s evaluation of candidates is comprehensive and objective. These notes capture candidates’ qualifications, skills, experiences, and overall fit for open roles, providing references to aid in the decision-making process.
Interview notes also present an official record for reference in case any questions or disputes arise about the hiring process. They offer transparency and accountability in determining if the recruitment process is conducted methodically and candidates are evaluated fairly. This is especially important if a candidate questions their interview outcome or if a company must address legal or compliance considerations.
9 reasons you should take interview notes
- They help interviewers remember critical details about candidates: Taking notes not only helps you stay on track and ask more detailed follow-up questions, but it also provides a record of interviews you can refer to later if necessary.
- They provide a factual basis for evaluating candidates: This reduces the influence of biases and subjective impressions. Hiring managers and recruiters can also compare their notes to obtain a more well-rounded overall picture of each candidate within the company’s culture.
- They promote fairness in hiring: Consistently capturing notes throughout the recruitment process ensures you can assess all candidates using identical criteria.
- They facilitate an informed decision-making process: This is particularly important during debriefing sessions, as it enables a thorough comparison of candidates.
- They provide a shared reference point for discussion: This supports detailed, clear communication among hiring team members, allowing them to make better-informed hiring decisions.
- They create a clear record of the interview process: This demonstrates if candidate evaluations are conducted methodically. If interview notes don’t reveal a methodical process based on similar questions for candidates, you should initiate a review of the entire process.
- They can protect you and your organization: Referring to detailed documentation captured during the hiring process can help you and your company in case of legal or compliance issues.
- They enable you to share constructive post-interview feedback with candidates: This lets you build stronger long-term relationships even with candidates you don’t hire but who may be good fits for future positions. Letting candidates know you value their time and effort will, in turn, lead them to speak favorably about your business.
- They provide material for training new interviewers: New recruitment and hiring personnel can analyze your past notes to help them improve the interview process.
When to take interview notes
HR and hiring managers play crucial but different roles throughout the interview process. HR professionals typically handle the early stages of the process, such as pre-screenings and initial screenings, while hiring managers take over during the more extensive interview rounds.
Understanding when and why each party takes notes and what these notes should include ensures a cohesive and comprehensive evaluation of candidates.
When should an HR professional take interview notes?
Pre-screening stage
During the pre-screening stage, an HR professional takes notes based on résumé reviews, phone screenings, key qualifications and experiences, and any potential red flags. These notes help filter out unqualified candidates and ensure only suitable candidates proceed to the next stage.
Screening interviews
During screening interviews, HR records detailed notes on candidates’ responses to standard questions, evaluating their basic qualifications, cultural fit, culture add, and interest in open positions. These notes are then shared with the hiring manager, providing them with a comprehensive overview of each candidate.
Initial assessment tests
HR is responsible for documenting the results and any other observations about each candidate’s performance if the recruitment process includes any initial assessments or skills evaluations. This information is crucial for the hiring manager to understand candidates’ capabilities and suitability for different roles.
Reference checks
Detailed notes on feedback from candidates’ previous employers and colleagues are one of the most critical steps in the recruitment process. These notes are essential for verifying the candidate’s background and can counter possible biases. For example, if a candidate’s previous employers or managers express vastly differing opinions of them, you would need to conduct further research before taking the next steps.
Onboarding discussions
During the final stages of the hiring process, HR may discuss each candidate’s salary expectations, availability, and onboarding logistics. Notes from these discussions are essential to ensure a smooth transition for new hires and align their expectations with the company’s.
When does a hiring manager take interview notes?
Technical interviews
A hiring manager takes notes during technical interview rounds on candidates’ skills, problem-solving abilities, and technical knowledge. These are crucial for assessing a candidate’s suitability for the technical aspects of a role and for comparing different candidates’ hard skills and experience.
Additionally, reviewing notes after a technical interview can reveal gaps that were not apparent initially due to the candidate’s ability to appear more knowledgeable than they were.
Behavioral interviews
In behavioral interviews, a hiring manager documents candidates’ responses to situational questions, evaluating their past behavior and potential fit within the company culture. This shows how candidates might perform in real-world scenarios.
Panel interviews
When multiple interviewers are involved, the hiring manager often leads the panel and takes notes on the collective feedback and observations. This ensures the consideration of all perspectives and a balanced view of each candidate.
Case study evaluations
Hiring managers might conduct case study interviews for problem-solving and strategic thinking roles. During these interviews, they take detailed notes on each candidate’s approach, thought process, and proposed solutions to assess their analytical and strategic capabilities.
Final interviews
During the final interview round, typically with senior leadership or the hiring manager, comprehensive notes are taken to capture the final impressions and any additional questions or concerns raised. These notes play a key role in the final decision-making process and in negotiating the offer.
HR tip
Schedule regular post-interview alignment meetings to discuss and align with your HR team on evaluation criteria and candidate assessments. The goal is to fix any discrepancies among team members and make the most of your individual interview notes.
Free interview notes templates
Organized note-taking during interviews helps to accurately assess candidates and make informed hiring decisions. To help you streamline this process, we’ve created two easy-to-use templates: one in Excel and another in Word.
Interview notes template: Excel
Interview notes template: Word
Techniques for taking comprehensive interview notes
1. Prepare well before the interview
Preparation is key to effective note-taking during interviews. HR professionals and recruiters should meet with hiring managers to understand the responsibilities of each open position and clarify any areas of focus or concern.
You should also prepare structured questions in advance to ensure the interview covers all necessary topics systematically. Finally, review each candidate’s résumé and application documents before the interview to help you tailor your questions accordingly.
2. Create a structured interview template
Not only will such a template help you as an HR professional, but it can also help hiring managers. A structured interview template is essential for organizing notes efficiently — it should include sections covering personal information, key qualifications, strengths and weaknesses, and behavioral responses. A consistent format makes it easier to compare candidates and ensures no critical areas are overlooked.
HR tip
Share this template with the hiring manager and other interviewers to ensure consistency among everyone involved. You can then use it to guide the interview and ensure that you cover all important areas.
3. Practice active listening and engagement
Your goal is to take accurate, comprehensive notes, which is only possible if you actively listen to each candidate’s words. You can do so by making eye contact, showing interest in their responses, and using non-verbal cues (like nodding). This enables you to take detailed notes and leaves a positive impression on the candidate.
4. Use abbreviations and symbols
Using abbreviations and symbols can help speed up note-taking and ensure you capture all essential information without losing the flow of conversation with candidates. Create a list of standard abbreviations and symbols for commonly used terms (e.g., “XP” for experience or “Qs” for qualifications) and familiarize yourself with them. You should also share this list with the other interviewers so they will understand your notes after each interview.
5. Highlight key points and quotes
The more candidates you interview, the more notes you’ll have after the interview process. Emphasizing key points and direct quotes from the candidate can help you focus on critical information. You can do so by using different colors to highlight important points and quotes, as well as taking note of particularly strong or weak responses from each candidate for later discussion with your team.
6. Review and edit notes post-interview
Reviewing and editing your notes immediately after each interview can help you fill in gaps, clarify ambiguities, and better organize them. You can add additional notes while the interview is still fresh in your mind and use a structured template to organize your notes for easy reference.
7. Collaborate with your hiring team
Sharing interview notes with your hiring team promotes collaboration and ensures a well-rounded systematic evaluation of each candidate. Use a centralized system to store and share files to make sure everyone on your team can access all relevant interview notes and add their own. After each interview, you can also schedule a debriefing to discuss everyone’s feedback and impressions.
Post-interview notes: Best practices
Step 1: Enter your notes into an interview evaluation form
Immediately after each interview, enter your notes into a standardized interview evaluation form. This form should align with the structured interview template you used during the interview and can include sections for each aspect of the interview (e.g., technical skills and cultural fit). This enables all information to be centralized, making it easier to review and compare later. You should also make sure all the interviewers follow the same format to maintain consistency.
Step 2: Organize notes based on specific criteria
The next step is to organize the notes based on specific criteria, such as technical skills, cultural fit, behavioral traits, and overall impressions. This will help your team systematically evaluate each candidate against the job requirements.
To facilitate collaboration and cross-referencing, create categories or tags in the evaluation form for easy sorting and filtering. Group similar observations together to identify patterns and ensure each criterion is clearly defined to avoid ambiguity.
Step 3: Highlight key competencies and skills
Identify and highlight each candidate’s key competencies and skills to quickly determine which candidates meet a role’s main requirements. Summarize their top strengths and weaknesses in your notes and cross-reference these competencies with the job description to determine their suitability for the role.
Step 4: Use rating scales
Incorporate rating scales in the evaluation form to quantify each candidate’s performance in different areas. Rating scales can help you compare candidates and make the evaluation process more transparent and objective. Use a consistent scale (e.g., 1-5 or 1-10) for all criteria and provide clear guidelines for each rating to ensure consistency among all interviewers. You can also include a space for comments to explain each rating given.
Step 5: Conduct a comparative analysis of the candidates
Once you’ve interviewed all candidates for a role and organized your notes, conduct a comparative analysis of the interviewees. This involves reviewing and comparing the evaluation forms to identify the strongest candidates.
Create a comparison matrix to visualize each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses. Use weighted criteria to prioritize the most critical skills and attributes. All interviewers must participate in this analysis to gather diverse perspectives.
Step 6: Hold a debriefing session with the hiring manager
Schedule a debriefing session with the hiring manager and other interviewers to discuss everyone’s findings from the interviews. This collaborative approach allows all parties to consider all insights before making a final decision.
Share the organized notes and comparative analysis with the hiring team in advance, and structure the debriefing to assess each candidate systematically. Encourage open discussion and debate to address any discrepancies in evaluations.
Step 7: Help hiring managers maintain objectivity and fairness
As an HR professional, you play a crucial role in ensuring the hiring process remains objective and fair. This involves reminding hiring managers to base their decisions on documented evidence and established criteria rather than personal biases.
Using structured evaluation forms and rating scales can minimize subjectivity, but hiring managers must also remember the importance of equal opportunity and non-discrimination when hiring. If necessary, you can also provide training on unconscious bias and objective assessment techniques.
Step 8: Document final decisions and feedback
Finally, document hiring decisions and any interview feedback provided to candidates. This is important for maintaining transparency and for future reference. Record the final decision-making process, including the reasons for selecting or rejecting each candidate. Make sure feedback is constructive and based on specific observations from each interview, then store all notes and evaluation forms in a secure, accessible location for future audits or reviews.
The impact of implementing note-taking best practices
Implementing best practices for interview note-taking can help you record nuanced information that might be forgotten or misremembered later. Done correctly and consistently, this practice ensures transparency and fairness and can align your entire HR team and hiring managers in making informed, objective hiring decisions. It also allows you to provide helpful feedback to candidates and, in more serious cases, protects you and your organization against potential claims of bias or discrimination.
Taking notes during job interviews also requires you to be attentive to interviewees, get detailed information about them, and offer them constructive feedback. This goes a long way toward improving the candidate experience and, as such, can boost your company’s public image among job seekers.
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