Interview Scorecard

What is an Interview Scorecard?

An interview scorecard is something that employers use during the hiring process. An interview scorecard helps in standardizing the recruitment process by evaluating candidates on certain standards. 

It consists of different skills and competencies that the ideal candidate should have. A scorecard is maintained by each interviewer and it helps in assessing the candidates on those skills in a standardized manner. After the interviews, each interviewer can go back to their interview scorecard of a particular candidate and combine their reviews to make reasonable decisions. 

The objective of an interview scorecard is to evaluate the candidates objectively. It ensures that each interviewer assesses the candidate on some pre-determined standards. It leads to uniformity amongst the interviewers which helps them to conduct the interview while being on the same page. 

Benefits of Interview Scorecard

Interview scorecards come with a lot of benefits which help in conducting the recruitment process a lot more efficiently.

Here are some of the key benefits of an interview scorecard-

• Interview scorecards allow the interviewers to understand their ideal candidate. It helps them to understand the criteria on which they’re supposed to evaluate the candidate,
• An Interview scorecard reduces the overall time involved in the recruitment process. Since interviewers are absolutely clear about what they want from a candidate, it helps in reducing any unnecessary conversation during the interview. Also guide interviewers to stick to their job criteria during an interview, thereby reducing the time by avoiding any unnecessary chats.
• These reduce any personal biases or prejudices toward a candidate. It helps the interviewers to assess the candidates solely on the basis of their skills and abilities. 
• Interview scorecards help the interviewers in remembering the candidates more easily especially when they have a large pool of applicants. It solves the problem of forgetting about a candidate and allows employers to assess the candidate on the basis of their skills and abilities. 
• These are extremely useful in multiple interview settings and help in assessing the consistency of the candidate’s answers.
• An interview scorecard eases the whole recruitment process by evaluating the candidates in a quantitative manner. Each interview marks the candidate and rates them on a numeric scale, which helps in evaluating the candidate in a more scientific manner. 

How to Create an Interview Scorecard?

Before creating an interview scorecard, you need to clarify what you’re looking for in a candidate. You need to make a list of skills and abilities that your ideal candidate should have. 

A scorecard usually consists of three or four columns. The first column includes the name of skill and ability being evaluated, the second consists of the candidate’s response, the third consists of a summary of the answer by the candidate and the last column consists of a numerical rating which generally ranges from 1-10. Some employers might also choose to add an additional column in an interview scorecard for writing their personal comments about the candidate. 

What should an Interview Scorecard include?

• Date of the interview
• Name of the candidate
• Job role
• Skills and abilities being evaluated
• Candidate’s response
• Interviewer’s numerical rating
• Ideal numerical rating
• Personal comments about the candidate

Here are some of the common things measured in an interview scorecard-

• An interview scorecard measures the tools and programs in which the candidate can operate and is efficient. It helps in understanding whether the candidate can operate the necessary software or tools properly or not.
• These measure the quality of the candidate’s previous experience and help in understanding the past experiences of the candidate and assessing their competencies accordingly.
• An interview scorecard measures the personality traits of a candidate. It also helps in measuring certain personality traits that your ideal candidate should have to get along in your company’s work culture.
• These also measure the transferable skills of the candidates and, help in understanding the transferable skills of the candidate which are important to the job role such as communication skills, leadership skills, etc.

Here is a sample interview scorecard for a better understanding-

CRITERION	NUMERICAL RATING	IDEAL RATING	COMMENTS
Leadership Skills	–	–	–
Technical Skills	–	–	–
General Aptitude	–	–	–
Interpersonal Skills	–	–	–

Pros and Cons of Interview Scorecard

PROS	CONS
Keep you focused on the skills you want to assess and help in maintaining the flow of the conversation.	Limit the personal engagement in an interview, since scorecards require in-depth attention.
Helps in assessing the candidates in a more scientific manner.	Makes the interview process rigid.
Reduces the overall time in the recruitment process, if set up properly at once.	Take a lot of effort to maintain scorecards properly.

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