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Making an interview score sheet is a cinch–if you know what to include.[/caption]An interview score sheet, or interview scorecard, is a tool used to score job applicants in a way that is consistent and fair, while providing structure to interviews, capturing information, and documentation of an objective interview process. Score sheets have many other benefits, which you can read about in our post, Using Interview Scorecards to Improve Hiring. In this article, you’ll learn:◊ What must-have items to include in a scorecard◊ How to calculate scoring◊ What not to include in a scorecard

What to Include in an Interview Scorecard

In order to get the most from your candidate interview score sheets, here are 6 must-have elements to include:◊ Interview information◊ Candidate attributes being scored◊ Scoring weight of attributes◊ Base skill & education requirements◊ Candidate attributes being scored◊ Scoring weight of each attributeYou can easily create a score sheet template using Google Docs or Microsoft Word. Check out this excellent example from the Society for Human Resource Management to get you started.

Interview Details Section

Include the candidate’s first and last name, the position or the title of the job they’re interviewing for, department or practice area of the business, the name of the person interviewing them, and the date and time of the interview. Each person interviewing the candidate should have their own scorecard to fill out and not be sharing the same sheet for one candidate.

Interview details information details section checklist

◊ Candidate Name◊ Position | Job Title◊ Department | Team◊ Interviewed By◊ Interview Date | Time

Attributes You’re Scoring the Candidate on

You will need to make sure that you’re measuring candidates on the right criteria for the position and making sure that the questions being asked are objective. What are the company’s values & culture? Once you have those, tie them into measurable questions that not only fit with the entire organization, but also fit within the team/department’s dynamic (if possible)–which is especially important for making hires that are a good fit long-term.Here's an example of an objective question: "Talk about how you would handle [insert common job challenge]?"

How to Develop Scoring for Attributes

◊ Come up with a list of at least 10 questions requiring concrete answers◊ Write down ideal answers for the 10 questions that require concrete answers, permitting the interviewer to score each applicant independently on◊ Develop additional questions that will enable the interviewer to differ from one candidate to another and be used in certain applicable situations. (For example, if/when candidates share the exact same responses/attributes.◊ Share questions & answers with hiring team for input; edit as necessary

Weight Assigned to Attributes Being Scored

To come up with the weight of each attribute, take the list of 10 questions requiring concrete answers and list them in order of importance and assign a number to it. A lower number if it’s not as important and a higher number if it is. In order to calculate each applicant’s weighted score, multiply the attribute weight by the raw score.

The Position’s Base Skill & Education Requirements

What background education and qualifications does your ideal hire have? What are some nice-to-haves skills or experience that are non-essential for role, but a plus? List those out separately according to skill/attribute for measuring and make the answers yes/no binary choices where and applicant can be given zero to “X” points pending on the weight given to them.

What Not to Include on an Interview Scorecard

Don’t invite potential litigation by including anything on your scorecard that could inadvertently encourage a violation of federal law such as age or date of birth, gender or gender identification, martial or family status, race, ethnic or religious background, disability or pregnancy status.If you have further questions regarding protected statuses and equal opportunity employment law, please visit: https://www.eeoc.gov/ You may also need to consult laws at the individual state level, as laws in many states have been changed in recent years to provide further protection against possible discrimination or unfair hiring practices.

Putting Candidate Interview Score Sheets to Work

Scorecards make interviews more structured and there’s a broad body of research that suggests structured interviews are more effective than unstructured interviews when it comes to making unbiased hiring decisions. To get the most from the implementation of interview score sheets in your hiring process, there are several things organizations can do, including: training interviewers, communicating your hiring process to all applicants, reviewing staffing partners and recruiter’s screening process to avoid redundancies, and standardization of scorecards.If your organization is in need of assistance developing scorecards, training hiring managers and other staff on conducting interviews and using scorecards but short on resources, consider a solution like FORCE. We can tailor engagements according to individual company needs.

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