Free Interview Evaluation Forms & Scorecard Templates
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Charlette has over 10 years of experience in accounting and finance and 2 years of partnering with HR leaders on freelance projects. She uses this extensive experience to answer your questions about payroll.
Jennifer Soper is an HR Specialist and staff writer for Fit Small Business, with over 15 years of experience in accounting, payroll, and human resources.
This article is part of a larger series on Hiring.
An interview evaluation form allows interviewers to assess and score job applicants consistently, allowing for more objective screening. Data from the forms is then transferred to an interview scorecard used by HR or the hiring manager to determine which candidate, based on all interviewer feedback, is the best fit for the organization.
We have included eight free interview evaluation forms and three free scorecards that you can customize for specific types of interviews and job roles. You can download all 11 templates with the link below, or download only the individual template(s) you need.
Download Our Interview Evaluation Form Templates
Simple Interview Evaluation Form
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The simple interview evaluation form is the best and easiest evaluation form to use if your interviewers don’t have much experience or if you only need a simple one-page document to jot down notes and score the candidate on 5-10 job qualifications. It allows raters to assess each candidate using three choices (poor, OK, great).
Because these templates are editable, you can modify each to suit your particular needs by changing the text in the categories, modifying the rating scale, or adding your logo.
Job-specific Simple Interview Evaluation Forms
These forms take the basic questions provided in the interview evaluation form template and customize them to specific job roles. For example, candidates for a retail job may need point-of-sale (POS) experience, while candidates for an administrative role may need specific computer expertise. Browse the tabs below to download job-specific simple interview evaluation forms.
Use this template to assess retail job candidates for fit within your business and customer base. This interview evaluation form verifies that candidates have the skills to run a register and serve clients.
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Use this template if you’re interviewing individuals who will work in the fast-paced food service industry—to ensure you’re evaluating candidates fairly and capturing the work experience and interpersonal skills required to establish great customer service as well as food safety.
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Use this template if you’re interviewing an administrative assistant. This form contains questions that assess typical job skills needed by a successful admin, such as computer skills and the ability to support others.
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Complex Interview Evaluation Form
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A complex interview evaluation form is more detailed and contains additional behavioral interview questions that are appropriate to ask in professional interviews. Use this customizable template if you’re looking to document results from a detailed behavioral interview, as well as job-specific qualifications, personality traits, and organizational fit.
Job-specific Complex Evaluation Forms
These forms use the same format provided in the complex interview evaluation form and further customize the behavioral and technical questions to suit specific job roles. For example, managers need to inspire team members, project managers may need PMP certification, and technical team members may need to have specific hardware or software expertise.
This interview evaluation form contains questions relevant to managerial roles and assesses job competencies that are both hard to develop and critical to the success of a manager/supervisor in an organization.
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Use this template if you’re evaluating candidates for technical skills. You can customize it by listing the specific hardware, software, or project tools the job requires. This interview evaluation form includes 10 behavioral interview questions specific to the kind of competencies required by technical staff in addition to the 10 questions used to evaluate most candidates—questions about communication, teamwork, and customer service.
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Because project managers do the work of managers without direct supervisory authority, this template includes competencies identified by the Project Management Institute (PMI). These skills include the ability to manage conflict, prioritize work, and motivate a self-managed team.
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Free Interview Evaluation Scorecards
Once individual interviewers have completed their rating of a candidate using the evaluation form(s), you can input that data into an interview evaluation scorecard to compare everyone’s interview ratings for the same candidate. This way, you can determine the average rating for each candidate and decide (without bias) whether or not you should move the candidate forward in the hiring process. Browse the tabs below to download our free interview evaluation scorecards.
If you’ve used the simple candidate evaluation form, then you can transfer the data to this scorecard template and get comparative ratings. This shows the average score and overall count of those who recommended that the candidate move forward to the next step in the interview process, such as a final interview. This is great for a side-by-side comparison of how each interviewer rated the same candidate.
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Score each candidate based on poor=1 point, OK=2 points, or great =3 points. Then, transfer each interviewer’s (subjective) overall rating (poor, OK, or great) to the overall column and note whether they recommend the candidate move forward.
If you want to compare interviewer ratings of a candidate for a higher-level job, one for which you used the more complex behavioral and competency-based interview form, then use this scorecard template to input the interviewers’ ratings.
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It’s scored exactly like the simple scorecard, although your totals and averages will be higher based on the number of questions you assess. You can then obtain an average rating for the candidate overall, and determine the next steps, such as a final interview or a request for a sample work product.
Once all your interviews are complete for each candidate for a specific job, you’ll need a way to capture the summary data and compile it into a comparative scorecard. This lets you compare how candidates performed in the interview on an apples-to-apples basis.
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The candidate comparison scorecard allows you to document and rate candidates fairly and can come in handy if you ever have a claim of interviewer bias or unfair hiring practices filed against your company. You would be able to show how each candidate compared to one another and provide documentation as to why you choose to hire one person and not another.
After evaluating and scoring the candidate, if you choose not to move forward, please consider sending the applicant a professional rejection letter to maintain goodwill and encourage the applicant to apply for other positions that may be a better fit.
Training Interviewers to Use Interview Evaluation Forms
Our free interview evaluation forms are straightforward, containing 10-20 questions, room to make reminder notes about each rating, and a three-point rating scale for interviewers to choose from. All interviewers should use the same form and rating system for consistency. In addition to training on how to conduct an interview (including what not to ask), your interviewer training can be as simple as showing the interviewer how to use and score the form:
- Complete form information, such as interviewer name, candidate name, job title, and date
- Rate candidate on each of the questions (poor, OK, great) by using a checkmark
- Once the interviewer evaluation ratings are complete, count the number of each “poor”, “OK” and “great” ratings and write that number at the bottom of the interview evaluation form
- Interviewers then circle their overall rating (which is subjective; it may or may not match the numeric score)
- Last, they should indicate “yes” or “no” on whether they recommend the candidate
- If they have comments as to why they made a recommendation, they can write those in the notes section
Scoring an interview evaluation form example
With complex interview evaluation forms, you may want to explain why you chose specific behavioral and technical interview questions. It is scored the same way as the simpler versions; however, it typically has more questions.
Do’s & Don’ts of an Interview Evaluation Form
Whether you use our free templates or create your own, an interview evaluation form should have basic candidate information and job-related questions. However, be careful when you make your interview evaluation form that you do not ask or rate anything that could be subject to discovery in a litigation process, such as any demographic, gender, or other protected-class information that may violate labor laws. Below is a list of what to include and what not to include on your interview evaluation forms.
What TO Include | What NOT to Include |
|---|---|
First and last name of candidate | Candidate gender or gender identity |
Position or job title | Candidate marital or family status |
Name of interviewer | Candidate race, ethnic, or religious background |
Date and/or time of interview | Candidate age or date of birth |
Evaluation criteria | Candidate location (it’s OK to indicate candidate’s preferred work location) |
Interview questions | Candidate disability or pregnancy |
Summary rating | For equal employment opportunity purposes, once hired, demographic data may be gathered by HR and maintained separately in a personnel file. |
Recommendation | |
Comments |
Be cautious of illegal questions you cannot ask during the hiring process.
Bottom Line
Like most business tools, the exact interview evaluation form you need should be right for your business and the specific job for which the candidates are applying. If you are looking for a simple evaluation form, with 10 or fewer questions, download and customize the simple interview evaluation template. If you’re hiring your first manager or interviewing for a senior-level role, you might consider using a more complex template that is job-specific.
We’ve also provided three versions of interview evaluation scorecard templates for you to choose from, both to compare interviewer feedback on a candidate and to compare multiple candidates against each other for the same job.
