Interview Scorecard Template (and How to Fill One In Without Bias Creeping In)

What goes on a scorecard

• Which job, which round, who interviewed, and when.
• A short list of competencies: four to six things this interview is meant to assess.
• A rating scale with definitions, so a 3 means the same thing to everyone.
• Evidence, meaning a line or two of what the candidate actually said or did.
• A recommendation, written only after everything above.
• Anything the next interviewer should probe.

A template you can copy

Paste this into a document or spreadsheet and adapt the competencies to the role.

INTERVIEW SCORECARD

Candidate:
Role:
Round:
Interviewer:
Date:

RATING SCALE
1 = Does not meet the bar
2 = Partly meets the bar
3 = Meets the bar
4 = Clearly exceeds the bar

COMPETENCY 1: ____________________
Evidence (what they said or did):

Score (1-4):

COMPETENCY 2: ____________________
Evidence:

Score (1-4):

COMPETENCY 3: ____________________
Evidence:

Score (1-4):

COMPETENCY 4: ____________________
Evidence:

Score (1-4):

CONCERNS / THINGS TO PROBE NEXT:

RECOMMENDATION (fill in last):
Strong yes / Yes / No / Strong no

MAIN REASON FOR RECOMMENDATION (one or two sentences):

Why a four-point scale

A scale of one to five gives people a comfortable middle to hide in. Three feels safe and says nothing. Four points forces a lean. Either the candidate is clearly at or above the bar, or they are below it. If your team likes five points, that is fine, but write out what each one means.

Ten-point scales are worse than they look. Nobody can tell you the difference between a six and a seven, so the numbers turn into noise.

A filled-in example

Here is what good evidence looks like next to a weak version, for a competency called "handles ambiguity".

The second one can be discussed in a debrief. The first can only be argued with.

Rules for filling it in

1. Take notes during the interview and score straight afterwards, while you still remember the exact words.
2. Write the evidence before the number. Otherwise the number comes first and the evidence turns into justification.
3. Score each competency on its own, so one brilliant answer does not lift the rest.
4. Leave the overall recommendation to the end.
5. Do not read anyone else's scorecard before you submit yours.

Common ways scorecards go wrong

The halo effect is the most common problem. A great first answer colors the rest of the interview, and every later score drifts upward. Scoring each competency on its own, with the evidence written first, is the best defense.

"Culture fit" is the next. Without a definition it turns into "someone like me". If you care about values or working style, describe the specific behaviors you mean and score those instead.

Averaging is a quieter mistake. A candidate who scores 4, 4, 4 and 1 on a must-have skill is not a 3.25, so mark the must-haves and treat them as pass or fail. Then there are the two boring failures: too many competencies (list ten and none get real attention) and scorecards nobody reads, because once the debrief ignores them, interviewers stop filling them in properly.

Putting it into a process

A scorecard only works if the questions and scoring are agreed first, which is the point of a structured interview process. If your team is short of interviewers, you can also outsource part of the interviewing and ask the external interviewers to use the same scorecard so the results line up.

Tired of spreadsheets? The internal interviews tool keeps interviews, interviewers and feedback in one place, and assessments can add skill tests to the mix.