Interview notes that hold up, with a template you can copy
Interview notes are what you write while a candidate is answering: their words, what they did, and the follow-up you asked. Good notes are detailed enough that someone who was not in the room can see why you rated what you rated. Below is a blank form, a filled-in example and a summary.
The interview notes template you can copy
ROLE: [title] STAGE: [screen / panel / final] CANDIDATE: [name or ref] DATE: [date] START: [time] END: [time] INTERVIEWER(S): [names] CRITERIA ASSESSED: [4 to 6, agreed before the interview] --- repeat this block once per criterion --- CRITERION: [name] Question asked: What they said (their words, short quotes): What they did (observable, not adjectives): Follow-up asked, and the answer: Rating: [ ] 1 [ ] 2 [ ] 3 [ ] 4 [ ] 5 [ ] Not assessed Why this rating (point at the evidence above): --- end block --- OVERALL Strongest evidence: Weakest evidence: Unanswered, carry to the next stage: RECOMMENDATION [ ] Highly recommended [ ] Recommended [ ] Not recommended The 1 or 2 reasons that decided it: SIGNED: [name] SIGNATURE DATE: [date]
What are interview notes?
Interview notes The written record of what a candidate said and did, taken while they say it. The US Office of Personnel Management calls detailed note-taking during each interview crucial, because notes carry the details of multiple candidates that memory will not.
The test an interviewer note has to pass: are these notes of sufficient quality and quantity to document your reasoning for each rating, and to support the decision, to a reader who was not in the room?
Interview notes, interview summary and scorecard, compared
| Artefact | Written when | Who reads it | What it must contain |
|---|---|---|---|
| Interview notes | During, while the candidate is still talking | You, then the record | Their words, what you observed, the follow-up you asked and what it got |
| Interview summary | The same day, from the notes | The hiring manager and the recruiter | The criteria in order, the evidence under each, open questions, a recommendation |
| Scorecard | Immediately after the candidate leaves | The hiring team, and the file | A rating per criterion on one common scale, with the answer that earned it |
How to take interview notes in 6 steps
- Write the criteria down before anyone sits down Agree 4 to 6 criteria and one proficiency range for all of them, commonly 1 to 5. OPM asks for at least 3 levels and suggests aiming for 5 to 7. Head the page with the criteria, so your notes land under the right one.
- Tell the candidate you will be taking notes OPM lists this among the things to do when the candidate arrives. Saying it once removes the worst effect of an interviewer taking notes during an interview, which is the candidate guessing what your silence means.
- Capture words and behaviour, never impressions Write short quotes and observable actions. An adjective about the person is a note about you. A sentence about what they did is a note about them. "Rolled it back inside 10 minutes and told support first", not "seemed calm".
- Look up while you write OPM tells interviewers to make periodic eye contact while taking notes, both to show interest and to leave yourself a chance of seeing the non-verbal part of the answer.
- Ask the follow-up before you score anything When an answer is a team story or stops at the plan, ask what they personally did and how it ended. Then write down the answer to that, not your reaction to it. "What was your part in that?" and "How did it end?" cover most thin answers.
- Review and rate immediately, from the notes OPM says to review your notes and rate as soon as the candidate leaves the room. Ratings should be defensible and supported by the notes, with the actual answers written alongside.
A filled-in interview notes example
ROLE: Senior Backend Engineer STAGE: Panel 1 of 2
CANDIDATE: Candidate A DATE: 12 Mar
START: 10:02 END: 10:49 INTERVIEWERS: JR, PS
CRITERIA: incident handling, system design, SQL depth, collaboration
CRITERION: Incident handling
Q: walk me through the last outage you were on call for.
Said: "payments queue backed up at 3am, I rolled back the deploy
first and told support before we knew the cause".
Did: drew the queue on the whiteboard unasked; named the alert.
Follow-up: what was yours vs the team's? "I made the rollback call,
the fix next morning was [colleague]'s". Volunteered it.
Rating: 5. Sequenced the actions, separated own work from team's.
CRITERION: SQL depth
Q: difference between the 2 joins in the sample query.
Said: got the first half, then "I'd have to check the docs".
Did: rewrote the query correctly after a hint.
Follow-up: when would you reach for the other one? No answer.
Rating: 3. Correct with a hint, no unprompted depth.
CRITERION: Collaboration Rating: Not assessed, ran out of time
UNANSWERED, CARRY TO PANEL 2: has never owned a schema migration.
RECOMMENDATION: Recommended. SIGNED: JR, 12 Mar
Interviewer notes that hold up, and notes that do not
| What you heard | An interview note that does not hold up | One that does |
|---|---|---|
| A long answer with no result at the end | "Rambles." | "Ran 8 minutes, reached no outcome. Needed 2 prompts to get to what happened." |
| A story told entirely as "we" | "Team player." | "All 3 examples were team efforts. Asked twice for his own part; described attending." |
| Someone visibly steadying themselves after a hard question | "Nervous type." | "Paused, asked for the question again, then answered it in order. Recovered fast." |
| An answer you liked for reasons off the criteria | "Great culture fit, similar background to mine." | "Not assessed. Nothing here maps to a criterion we agreed for this role." |
| A rating you are sure about | "System design: 2 of 5." | "System design: 2 of 5. Did not address queue backpressure until prompted, then partly." |
What every interview notes form should carry
- Date, time, place and length of the interview
- Who interviewed, by name and job title
- The criteria being assessed, written before the interview
- The question actually asked, not the one you planned
- The candidate's own words, quoted short
- Observable behaviour, separate from any conclusion
- A rating per criterion on one common scale, plus Not assessed
- The reason for each rating, pointing at the evidence
- A signature and a date on the finished form
How to summarise an interview
A summary is not a shorter version of your notes. If you want one rule for how to summarize an interview, it is this: write for someone who was not there and who has to decide something. That means organising by the criteria rather than by the order the conversation took. Criteria first, the evidence under each, then what is still open, then your stance.
The work of summarizing interviews is almost all done already if the notes carry quotes and observable behaviour. Your analysis of the interview belongs in one line per criterion: what the evidence shows, not how the hour felt. If you find yourself writing sentences that could apply to any candidate, go back to the notes.
An interview summary example you can send
To: Hiring Manager, Senior Backend Engineer From: JR Panel 1 of 2, 12 Mar, 47 minutes, with PS Recommendation: Recommended. Proceed to panel 2. INCIDENT HANDLING: 5 of 5 Described a 3am payments outage: rolled back the deploy first and told support before the cause was known. Asked what was his rather than the team's, he named the rollback call as his and credited the fix to a colleague without being pushed. SYSTEM DESIGN: 3 of 5 Sensible service split. Did not reach queue backpressure until prompted, then gave a partial answer. SQL DEPTH: 3 of 5 Half the join question unaided, then correct after one hint. No answer on when he would choose the other join. COLLABORATION: not assessed. We ran out of time. OPEN QUESTIONS FOR PANEL 2 1. Has never owned a schema migration. Probe scope and rollback. 2. Collaboration, untested. Deciding reason: strong under pressure, thin on depth questions.
Can you take notes in an interview as a candidate?
Do
- Bring a small notebook, open it at the start and say you will jot things down
- Write down the questions you want to ask, so you still have them at the end
- Note names, systems and the next step with its date, while they are being said
- Glance at your notes to jog a detail, then look up and answer the person
- Keep your notes for interview prep at the next stage, and take them with you
Do not
- Reading a scripted answer off the page instead of answering the question asked
- Opening a laptop without asking first, which puts a screen between you
- Writing so much that you stop listening and miss the follow-up
- Carrying anything confidential from a current employer into the room
- Expecting the interviewer to read them; in a structured process they are told not to
The honest caveat
OPM tells interviewers that documents a candidate brings are for the candidate's reference and should not be looked at during the interview. So bringing notes is normal, and reading from them is what costs you.
Fix the criteria before anyone takes a note
Evaluation criteria for a role in The Cognitive: named parameters with weights that total 100.
Notes are only comparable when every interviewer writes against the same criteria. In The Cognitive the evaluation criteria are fixed per role before anyone interviews, while the interview questions adapt live to what each candidate says.
What your interview notes become once you write them
In the United States, the EEOC states that its regulations require employers to keep all personnel or employment records for 1 year. Once a charge of discrimination is filed, records relating to it must be kept until final disposition of the charge or of any lawsuit based on it, which covers the charging party and employees in similar positions.
There is a second rule in US federal law that bears directly on what you write. The EEOC says pre-employment information should be limited to what is essential for determining whether someone is qualified, and that inquiries about protected characteristics may be used as evidence of intent to discriminate. A subject you may not ask about is a subject you may not write down.
In the UK, Acas says notes and recordings from interviews must be stored securely and confidentially, and that you need permission before recording. The ICO says you can ask an organisation whether it is using or storing your personal information and ask for copies of it, usually with 1 month to respond. Its guidance does not single out interview notes, so check it for your case.
When the interview produces the record for you
The scorecard after a Cognitive AI interview: each criterion out of 5, an overall out of 100, a recommendation.
In a live two-way AI video interview on The Cognitive, the interviewer asks follow-up questions based on each answer. Afterwards there is a recording, a transcript with speaker labels and timestamps, and a scorecard, so nobody types notes in the room. It does not join or take notes on your own video calls.
What to remember
- Write the criteria before the interview, and head your page with them
- Tell the candidate at the start that you will be taking notes
- Capture their words and what they did, not adjectives about the person
- Review and rate immediately, from the notes, before the next meeting
- A hiring note is a personnel record with a retention clock on it
A note that records how a candidate made you feel is a record about you. A note that records what they said is a record about them.
Build the rest of the interview record
Interview feedback examples · Interview transcripts · AI note takers, compared · Scorecard generator · Interview kit
Frequently asked questions
What are interview notes?
Interview notes are the written record of what a candidate said and did, taken while they are answering. The US Office of Personnel Management sets the standard plainly: notes should summarise the content and delivery of answers, document observable non-verbal factors, and be of sufficient quality and quantity to document your reasoning for each rating and to support the employment decision.
What should an interview notes template include?
The date, time, place and length of the interview; who interviewed and their job title; the criteria agreed beforehand; the question actually asked; the candidate's own words; the observable behaviour; a rating per criterion on one common scale with the reason for it; and a signature and date. That is the interview notes format in the blank form at the top of this page.
What do good interview notes look like?
Short quotes and observable actions, filed under a named criterion, with the follow-up you asked and what it got. No adjectives about the person. The example interview notes above show the real shape, including a criterion marked Not assessed, which is what an honest note does when you run out of time.
Is it normal for an interviewer to take notes during an interview?
Yes, and in a structured process it is expected. OPM calls detailed note-taking during each interview crucial, tells interviewers to inform the candidate at the start that notes will be taken, and asks them to make periodic eye contact while writing. If someone is writing a lot, it usually means they are recording your answer rather than judging it.
Is it OK to have notes in an interview as a candidate?
Yes, and you can take notes to interview rounds at any stage. Bring a small notebook, say at the start that you will jot things down, and use it for the questions you want to ask. What costs you is reading answers off the page. OPM tells interviewers not to look at documents a candidate brings, so your notes are for you.
Should I take notes during an interview, and can I take notes during an interview at all?
Yes to both. Bring them, say at the start that you will be jotting things down, and use them for the questions you want to ask. Is it ok to look at notes during an interview? Glancing down to jog a detail is fine. Reading a prepared answer off the page is what costs you, because the interviewer hears recitation.
How do you write an interview summary?
Organise it by criteria, not by the order the conversation took. Under each criterion put the rating and the evidence that earned it, then what is still unanswered, then a recommendation and the 1 or 2 reasons behind it. The summary interview example above uses the same fictional interview as the notes, so you can watch one become the other.
How to write an interview report?
In most organisations an interview report is the same artefact as the summary under a more formal name. What changes is the header and the sign-off. OPM says the record should carry the date, time, place and length, the interviewer's name and job title, the questions, scores and notes for each candidate, and the materials used, and that each rating form is signed and dated.
How long should you keep interview notes?
It depends where you hire, so check with your own counsel rather than assuming a number. In the US, the EEOC states that its regulations require personnel or employment records to be kept for 1 year, and that a filed charge extends that until final disposition. In the UK, Acas says interview notes and recordings must be stored securely and confidentially.
Can a candidate ask to see the interview notes about them?
In the UK, the ICO says you can ask an organisation whether it is using or storing your personal information and ask for copies of it, with organisations usually having 1 month to respond. The ICO guidance does not name interview notes specifically, so check it for your situation. The practical consequence either way: write every note as though the person it is about will read it.
Can an AI interview produce the notes and the scorecard?
For a first-round screen on The Cognitive, yes. A live two-way AI video interview asks follow-up questions based on each answer, and afterwards there is a recording, a transcript with speaker labels and timestamps, and a scorecard: each criterion out of 5, an overall out of 100 weighted from the role's evaluation criteria, and a recommendation. It does not join your own video calls.
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