Home/Templates/Candidate Interview Notes

Free Template

Interview scorecards that compare candidates fairly.

Structured strengths, concerns, quotes, and recommendation. Easy for the hiring committee to compare across candidates. Or let AI generate the scorecard from the recording.

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Who uses this template

  • ›Hiring managers running structured interviews
  • ›Recruiters debriefing the hiring committee
  • ›People ops teams documenting interview loops

The template

Copy this structure into Word, Google Docs, Notion, or your favorite notes app. Or skip the manual work and let Note Genie generate the candidate interview notes for you from a recorded meeting.

01

Role & Stage

Role being hired for, interview type (technical, behavioral, panel), and which interview number this is in the loop.

02

Candidate Snapshot

Name, current role, years of experience, top of resume highlights.

03

Strengths

Specific moments where the candidate demonstrated the competencies you were probing.

04

Areas of Concern

Where they fell short and whether you'd want to probe again in a later interview.

05

Notable Quotes

Direct quotes worth sharing with the hiring committee — both positive and concerning.

06

Recommendation

Hire / no hire / probe further, with confidence level.

07

Follow-Up

Reference checks, next interview round, or rejection communication.

Tip: Copy the plain-text version below into your document, then save as .docx or .pdf. Or download the AI version that fills it in automatically — see the example below.

Plain text — copy & paste

CANDIDATE INTERVIEW NOTES
=========================

Meeting: ___________________________
Date: ___________________________
Attendees: ___________________________

1. ROLE & STAGE
   (Role being hired for, interview type (technical, behavioral, panel), and which interview number this is in the loop.)
   
   ___________________________________________
   ___________________________________________
   ___________________________________________

2. CANDIDATE SNAPSHOT
   (Name, current role, years of experience, top of resume highlights.)
   
   ___________________________________________
   ___________________________________________
   ___________________________________________

3. STRENGTHS
   (Specific moments where the candidate demonstrated the competencies you were probing.)
   
   ___________________________________________
   ___________________________________________
   ___________________________________________

4. AREAS OF CONCERN
   (Where they fell short and whether you'd want to probe again in a later interview.)
   
   ___________________________________________
   ___________________________________________
   ___________________________________________

5. NOTABLE QUOTES
   (Direct quotes worth sharing with the hiring committee — both positive and concerning.)
   
   ___________________________________________
   ___________________________________________
   ___________________________________________

6. RECOMMENDATION
   (Hire / no hire / probe further, with confidence level.)
   
   ___________________________________________
   ___________________________________________
   ___________________________________________

7. FOLLOW-UP
   (Reference checks, next interview round, or rejection communication.)
   
   ___________________________________________
   ___________________________________________
   ___________________________________________

AI-generated example

What the AI gives you back

Here's what Note Genie produces when you record a meeting and apply the Candidate Interview Notes template. No manual typing.

Senior Engineer Interview — System Design — May 21

Strengths: Strong tradeoff framing. Surfaced consistency-availability tradeoff unprompted and articulated trade well. Designed for cache invalidation correctly on the first pass.

Concerns: Slow to consider failure modes — needed nudge to discuss what happens when the cache layer is offline.

Quote: 'I'd actually argue against the read-through cache here — the staleness window outweighs the latency savings at this scale.'

Recommendation: Hire — System Design loop signal is strong. Probe failure-mode thinking in the next behavioral interview.
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