Candidate Interview Evaluation Form Guide (+ Free Template)

Simplifying and speeding up the time to hire is something every hiring team loves but often struggles to achieve.

Talent teams can work smarter by using a structured interview process. And we believe in using a candidate interview evaluation form to do this. A well-made interview assessment form gets teams on the same page about prospective candidates while also reducing unconscious bias.

To help your team make the right choices quickly, we’ll share best practices for designing interview evaluation forms that hook top-quality, professional candidates.

TL;DR—Key Takeaways

• A candidate evaluation form, or simply an “interview evaluation,” is a standard form interviewers use to evaluate a candidate against a particular set of criteria.
• Interview rubrics are included in the evaluation form to assess a candidate fairly, based on a set scoring system.
• Along with reducing personal bias, the benefits of using an interview evaluation form include speeding up interviews and enabling teams to make more data-driven decisions about potential new hires.
• If you’re creating a candidate evaluation form from scratch, we’ve got seven tips to design an interview evaluation form that everyone on the team can use. For example, agreeing on success criteria, following a structured interview approach, and leaving enough space for comments or notes on any interview red flags you spot.

What is a candidate interview evaluation form?

A candidate interview evaluation form is a document that lists fixed criteria for assessing an applicant. These forms help hiring team members document their thoughts on each candidate’s interview performance.

Since everyone on the team asks the same set of questions and uses the same method to score applicants, the process is standardized and fair. And if you’re looking for a clear business case, interview evaluations will ultimately speed up the overall recruitment cycle, from comparing candidates to decision-making.

While you can design an interview assessment sheet however you want, here’s an example of a simple yet effective form for evaluating candidates. 👇

Free interview evaluation form template

Discover the perfect tool to streamline your hiring process with our free interview evaluation form template. Download it here to enhance your candidate assessment efforts, but keep reading to uncover expert tips on maximizing its utility.

What is an interview rubric?

An interview rubric, also called a hiring or candidate scorecard, is a scoring tool enabling interviewers to rate each candidate’s education level and communication skills in specific categories.

It’s a vital component of an interview evaluation form and provides a quantitative way for the hiring team to decide who to advance to the next step in the hiring process. The interview rubric can reduce bias as the team objectively measures, scores, and analyzes each candidate using the same rating system.

Key features of a good candidate evaluation form

Ideally, you’ll want to personalize the candidate evaluation form to your company and the role you’re hiring for. But don’t forget about these essential elements:

• Personal information: Candidate name, work experience, educational background, certifications, and other key details.
• Role alignment: How their prior work experience, education, and overall profile make them suited for the specific job.
• Soft skills: Interpersonal skills, leadership skills, non-verbal and verbal communication, teamwork, and other soft skills.
• Technical skills: The core competencies for the job, e.g., basic customer service skills for a customer service lead role.
• Culture fit: How well the candidate’s values align with the company’s mission, vision, and long-term goals.
• Interviewer’s impressions and recommendations: Candidate enthusiasm displayed in the interview, specific remarks they made, questions they asked, etc.
• Comparison and ranking: How well they stack up against other candidates, and your key criteria for the role.
• Next steps: What you intend to do with the candidate based on their interview performance, e.g. invite them for another interview, reject them, send them a detailed test task, and similar.

Benefits of using an interview assessment form

Not all companies use an evaluation form during the interview process. But those who go with the flow will quickly realize how complex and lengthy their interviews and decision-making becomes. Considering it takes an average of 42 to 44 days to fill a role, anything that delays the process will cost the company more time and money.

And without structure, recruiters frequently fall back on unconscious biases to sway them, selecting new hires who aren’t a good fit in the long run.

Ultimately, both the business and candidate benefit from this shift to more quantitative data, as it reduces the risk of bias and speeds up the hiring process, among other benefits (like these below).

1. Standardization

To make fair hiring decisions, you need to focus on providing a level playing field for all candidates. By using standardized interview evaluation forms, you’ll assess everyone based on the same criteria, so feedback is consistent no matter who is conducting the interview.

As a result, hiring teams can collate candidate data faster and remove any roadblocks that slow down the recruitment cycle.

2. Reduce bias

Reducing personal bias in the interview process, like scoring someone with a higher score solely because they went to the same university as you, ensures all candidates are treated equally.

For example, the latest research shows that 36% of Gen Z workers have experienced discrimination during hiring. The biases are varied, including age, ethnicity, gender, weight, hair color, and others.

A structured interview ensures every candidate receives the same set of questions, regardless of age, ethnicity, religious beliefs, weight, or any other factor.

The structured approach and exclusion of personal information ensures everyone follows the same procedures and reviews candidates objectively.

3. Talent records for easy reference

Hiring teams can quickly and easily review the core information about an applicant by revisiting their evaluation form.

This is particularly useful if there are hundreds of applicants for a particular role or if the candidate is considered for a future role. Moreover, clear, quantitative records support the teams’ ability to make data-driven decisions.

4. Improve candidate feedback

Candidates always want to know how they’ve performed in an interview, and they don’t want to wait weeks or months to hear whether they were successful or not.

Having all relevant info available immediately on the evaluation form makes it quicker and easier to provide feedback to candidates and deliver a good candidate experience.

Interviews play a crucial part, as candidates can decide whether or not they accept a role based on how the interview went. Cronofy’s research shows 72% of candidates decided to take a job or not based on how smoothly the interview went.

5. Ensure compliance

Having records of each candidate interview can simplify any compliance or audit processes. Evaluation forms should provide the evidence needed for any HR compliance-related issues, such as litigation concerning the fairness of an appointment.

For example, if you run into the worst-case scenario of being sued because of discrimination, evaluation forms could save the day. You’ll have ample evidence that the candidate was not discriminated against, and all it took was filling out a few boxes during the interview.

How to create an interview evaluation form in 5 steps

Your company’s interview evaluation forms should be easy to use, enabling the hiring team to make quick, analytical decisions on which candidates to progress in the hiring cycle. Kickstart the process by considering these tips.

1. Identify the job role’s requirements

Each interview evaluation form should be adjusted to the specific role, starting with the job requirements. The hiring team should understand exactly what kind of candidate they want to hire. Creating an ideal candidate profile is an excellent starting point.

This profile is a list of desired skills, competencies, work experiences, and values that the candidate should ideally have to be a match for the role.

Speaking of which, make sure to differentiate between essential items and those that are nice to have. If you’re being unrealistic, the hiring process will drag out, and you risk losing great applicants who only met 90% of your criteria.

2. Agree on success criteria

This is when the hiring team determines what a successful candidate’s answer looks like. Note the major difference between step one and step two. In step one, you create a list of things the candidate should ideally have. In step two, you decide what a good answer from the candidate should look like.

For example, a good candidate for a project manager role should show exceptional communication skills, speak confidently about their previously completed projects, and pinpoint how they contributed to their completion.

A candidate for a CTO should explain which projects they spearheaded, the teams and people they managed, the technologies they used, and their overall impact on the business while they were employed there.

In short, this is the performance you expect from an amazing candidate during the interview.

3. Use an interview rubric to create a scoring system

An interview rubric is a crucial part of the form. To get everyone on the same page with the scoring method, the team will need to:

✅ Quantify the key job skills by using a numerical rating system. For example, a candidate with all five of your desired skills scores a 5/5.

✅ Decide on the rating scale or what each score means so that scoring is consistent across the team. For example, 1 = poor and 3 = satisfactory. In other words, if your scale is 1-5, use that same scale across questions and categories.

✅ Double-check everyone understands the rating scale before the interview begins. Then, debrief afterward to ensure everyone followed it correctly. Explain in detail what each level of the rating scale means to avoid misunderstandings in your team and prevent you from dropping qualified candidates.

All interviewers must use the rubric to evaluate candidates fairly—against a consistent set of expectations. Plus, it’s a good idea for all interviewers to provide input about what constitutes a quality answer and add what they’ve learned from their experience.

What’s more, rubrics can reduce bias by supporting a more analytical approach to interviews. Considering up to 65% of tech recruiters feel there is bias in tech recruitment, hiring teams using an interview rubric can mitigate this.

4. Structure your interview assessment form

Once again, each interview assessment form should be built from scratch for every business and role. However, you might like to follow this logical form structure:

• Candidate information section (name, the role they applied for, date and time, interviewer’s name)
• Evaluation criteria (broken down into categories such as soft skills, technical skills, cultural fit, problem-solving skills, etc.)
• Rating system (a standardized rating scale for each criterion your hiring team can understand)
• Behavioral questions (specific examples of past experiences)
• Skills-specific questions (tailored to the job requirements for a specific role)
• Notes and observations (free text section to jot down important notes, red flags, and observations)
• Overall assessment (a summary of the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses and a final recommendation on what to do with the candidate)
• Final comments and sign-off (additional feedback and the interviewer’s signature and date)

5. Leave space for notes and final comments

During an interview, you may hear the candidate say something that piques your interest, for the right or wrong reasons, that you want to discuss with the team afterward.

For example, you immediately notice the candidate is bragging about their achievements. And you jot this down as an interview red flag to unpack later.

That’s why it’s a good idea to allow plenty of space on the form for comments, notes, and your overall impression—remembering something you noticed six candidates ago is not easy for everyone…(except that braggy guy, of course!).

Best practices for using interview evaluation forms

An interview evaluation form is not just a stack of additional paperwork for your hiring process. When used intentionally, these forms help managers make better hiring decisions, by delivering consistency throughout the hiring process. The gains are the same whether you have 10 or 100 candidates.

Use feedback forms at the beginning of the recruitment process

Feedback forms are only valuable if you use them early on. When you establish consistent standards for assessment in the beginning, it’s easy to go back and find out who said what about a candidate and how their performance fares against your standards.

It also ensures fairness and objective assessment across candidates. You’ll compare applicants on the same basis, and all staff members immediately knew whether a candidate is a good fit just by glancing at the notes.

Train your interviewers

Just like any tool, interview evaluation forms require your team to know how to use them well. While most evaluation forms are pretty straightforward, you’ll still have to sit down and explain:

• How to use the rating scales
• How the hiring team benefits from using them
• How it provides a better candidate experience
• How to best extract useful information out of candidates

Once you create an interview evaluation form you’re happy with, set aside a few time slots to coach your recruiters and HR team on how to use them.

Regularly update your interview forms

At some point, you and your team may notice your interview evaluation form needs changes, such as adding a section on coping with remote work. Regularly updating your forms can minimize any interviewer frustration as the content is relevant and ready for them.

In addition, you may need to adjust the form depending on the position. If it’s a junior position, a simple evaluation form will suffice, but for a managerial or leadership position, the form may need more detail, such as delving into the person’s specific experience and abilities.

Follow a structured interview process

A structured interview format is another tool that facilitates fairness in the interview process. With structured interviews, the team uses a pre-defined set of interview questions for every candidate interviewed for a particular role.

What’s great is this format can speed up the interview process, as interviewers get less sidetracked (hopefully) with irrelevant details, like the candidate’s favorite type of pizza! If the team is interviewing a boatload of candidates for a role, saving time and staying on track is definitely a must.

Structured interview questions can include:

• Skill-specific questions, such as “What programming language do you prefer and why?”
• Behavioral questions, such as “Describe a time you had to motivate a team or team member to manage a shorter deadline.”
• Company culture questions, such as “What did you like most about your last company?” But be careful not to focus too much on ‘culture fit’ and instead look for positive signals of organizational fit.

Make hiring decisions based on evaluation forms

Interview evaluation forms can help immensely with making the right hiring decisions in more ways than one. They…

• Give you an objective comparison of different candidates
• Establish a baseline for what a “good” candidate is
• Make the hiring process more transparent for everyone involved
• Protect you from potential issues with candidate discrimination later on
• Allow data-driven hiring instead of making decisions based on a hunch

But this may be easier said than done. Here’s a simple process for making data-driven decisions based on evaluation form data.

• Organize and consolidate all the data for one candidate in one place. An applicant tracking system will be of great help here.
• Look for patterns. Identify the candidates all your hiring team members highly praise. At the same time, find discrepancies where different reviewers have opposing comments.
• Quantify the results. Use the rating scale for each skill set to find averages for each criterion. Then, get an overall score for each candidate to create a list of your top candidates.
• Contextualize qualitative feedback. Combine quantitative and qualitative insights for a balanced overview of each candidate’s interview performance.
• Avoid bias. Watch out for confirmation bias, i.e., favoring feedback that coincides with the interviewers’ personal opinions. Also, pay attention to the halo/horn effect, where a single trait or impression is overemphasized.
• Prioritize role-specific needs. Match each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses against the key competencies for the role.
• Consider cultural fit. Review the responses and see how the candidates’ values align with yours.
• Cross-check with other inputs. Take the data from the interview evaluation form and compare it against the candidate’s assessment results, resumes, portfolios, and other available data.
• Discuss as a team. Organize a post-interview debrief to discuss the most promising candidates, resolve conflicting feedback, and achieve consensus on who goes further.
• Document the decision-making process. Write down who was rejected and why, as well as the reasons why some candidates moved on to the next round. If you need to run an audit later on, you’ll have all the details in one place.

Common mistakes to avoid in interview evaluations

While interview evaluation forms can be incredibly valuable, they can also harm your hiring efforts if not done well. Here are some of the most common mistakes you should watch out for.

• Lack of clear evaluation criteria. Avoid overly broad or ambiguous criteria such as “good fit” or “strong skills.”
• Overly subjective ratings. Impressions that rely on feelings or impressions without hard evidence can be discarded.
• Evaluation bias. Allowing personal preferences, stereotypes, or the halo/horn effect to impact hiring decisions.
• Incosistent rating scales. For example, using a 3-point scale for one skill set and a 5-point scale for a different one.
• Overemphasis on scores. Focusing only on numerical scores without considering qualitative feedback.
• Ignoring job-specific skills. Using a generic interview evaluation form and not adjusting it for the role you’re hiring for.
• Neglecting cultural fit. Taking into consideration hard and soft skills but not testing for cultural fit.
• Inadequate space for notes. Not leaving enough space for the interviewer to add their contextual remarks.
• Lack of alignment across reviewers. For example, when reviewers use the evaluation form in different ways or interpret the criteria differently.
• Overloading the form. Including too many questions or overly complex questions that lead to rushed or incomplete evaluations.
• Not capturing the follow-up questions. I.e., not documenting cases when the candidates’ responses require additional input or clarification.
• Skipping final recommendations. Not asking interviewers to provide a clear summary or hiring recommendation.

Supplement your interviews with skills assessments

Creating an interview evaluation form that is relevant and easy to use will help the hiring manager ensure consistency and a more fair approach when evaluating candidates.

Another key aspect of the recruiting cycle is skills assessments. Skills tests focus on applicants’ actual skills and capabilities, filtering out those with high potential.

With 49% of today’s employees working in jobs unrelated to their formal education, there’s ample scope for a skills-first approach to hiring.

Skills assessments fit in well in two different spots in the recruiting cycle:

☝️ You can assess candidates’ skills before the interview. And use the test score to identify the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, which the panel can discuss with the applicant during the interview.

✌️ Or, you can assess candidates’ skills after the initial interviews. That’ll be once the high-level technical and cultural fit has been confirmed.

Assess candidate strengths with Toggl Hire

Combining Toggl Hire with interview evaluation forms gives you a 360-degree view of your candidates’ performance. With our skills tests, you can determine if the candidate has the right soft and hard skills for the role at hand.

Once the results come in, send the candidates follow-up tasks to do at home and confirm your assumptions. You can then run a video interview with Toggl Hire and make notes in an interview evaluation form.

The end result is a comprehensive list of details on every candidate, ensuring a data-driven hiring decision you won’t regret. Ready to give it a try? Sign up for a free Toggl Hire account today.