Interview Feedback

Interviewer feedback: what good looks like

Good internal feedback lets someone who was not in the room understand why the interviewer rated the candidate as they did. It has three parts for each competency:

• The rating on the agreed scale.
• Evidence: what the candidate said or did, close to verbatim. "Described calling the customer back the next morning to confirm the replacement had shipped" is evidence. "Great with customers" is a conclusion.
• Gaps or concerns, also with evidence.

It ends with an overall recommendation, usually on a four-point scale (strong no, no, yes, strong yes) with no neutral middle option, so interviewers have to commit.

The form for all this is the interview scorecard. The best scorecards force a written justification for every rating and a separate free-text box for anything else.

Speed matters more than most teams think

Memory of an interview fades fast. Feedback written a day later is mostly reconstruction, and it drifts toward an overall impression of the candidate. Set a standard of feedback submitted within two hours of the interview, and no later than the end of the same day.

Slow feedback also delays decisions. In entry-level and hourly hiring, the best candidates often accept another offer within a few days. A team that takes a week to collect three interviewers' notes will keep losing its first choices. Many TA teams track feedback turnaround per interviewer and share it with hiring managers monthly; it is usually the fastest way to cut time to hire without changing anything else.

Independence before the debrief

Interviewers should submit feedback before they talk to each other or read anyone else's notes. Once one person says "I loved her," the others unconsciously adjust. Most applicant tracking systems can hide other interviewers' scores until you submit your own; turn that setting on.

The interview debrief then starts from the submitted ratings. Discussion should focus on competencies where interviewers disagree and on evidence, not on who argues most persuasively.

Candidate feedback after the interview

Candidates consistently say they want feedback, and silence or a generic rejection hurts candidate experience. The practical question is how much to share.

A sensible policy for most employers:

• Everyone gets a clear outcome and a thank-you, within a stated time frame.
• Candidates who reached final rounds get a short, specific note on the main reason, framed around job requirements ("The role needs someone who has run a team of 10 or more, and other finalists had more of that experience").
• Internal candidates get a conversation with the hiring manager, not just an email.

Keep candidate feedback factual, job-related and consistent with the scorecard. Never refer to age, family, health, accent or anything tied to a protected characteristic, and do not speculate ("You seemed nervous, maybe it was a bad day").

Common mistakes

• Feedback that only says "not a culture fit." It is unreviewable and can hide bias. Ask for the behavior behind it.
• Copying the resume into the feedback box. Feedback should cover what happened in the interview.
• Rating competencies that were not assessed. If you did not ask about it, leave it blank.
• Promising feedback and never sending it. Better to say plainly that you cannot share detailed feedback than to go quiet.
• Sharing interviewer notes directly with candidates. Rewrite the key points in plain, neutral language.

Remember that interview notes and scorecards may be requested in a discrimination claim or audit, and in some places by the candidate under data access laws such as the GDPR. Write as though the candidate might read it.