An interview evaluation form may be considered just another piece of paper. The truth is, if done correctly, it will help prevent mistakes in hiring. Specifically, it improves your selection in three areas; more consistent interviews, better interviewer notes and a more impartial result. These are the 3 top reasons to use an interview evaluation form. Let's dive into this more...

Consistency

In a typical interview evaluation form, (see below for a sample you can download), the questions are laid out as part of the form and space is provided for the interviewer to take notes. The very act of putting the suggested questions on paper will likely lead to a thorough interview and insure each candidate gets a chance to answer the same questions. This will lead to a more consistent interview process because you are comparing apples to apples in terms of the questions asked to each candidate in the interview.

Better Notes

Regarding notes, when the form is laid out with questions and a corresponding section for notes, it is more likely the interviewer will capture notes associated with a question. This will lead to better notes with more clarity. When an interviewer takes notes without reference to a specific question, sometimes the context of the answer is lost in the notes. Having the questions associated with the notes will solve this problem.

Impartial Results

At the end of the interview, with all the notes in hand, the interviewer then must go about the task of rating the candidate(s). In this process the interviewer assigns a rating of 1 to 4, with 4 being the top grade. The interviewer is now done.

The completed form is sent off to the hiring coordinator. The coordinator then applies a weighting to each rated criteria. The weight is associated with the importance of the criteria in the execution of the job. The product of the weight and the rating creates a score. The scores are summed to generate an overall interview score. This score can then used be to compare candidates.

Summary

Using an interview evaluation form can eliminate the 'gut feeling' hiring mistakes. If there is tremendous agreement, then you can be confident that you are making a quality hiring decision. If there is little agreement, the form results create a great starting point for further debate and discussion. Either way you get better quality results in your hiring decisions.





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