Interview scorecards allow you to create a structured, standardized way of assessing a candidate and there’s a broad body of research that shows that structured interviews are more effective than those that are unstructured.
A scorecard is essentially a set of factors that you would like to assess the candidate on, for example, one might be Cultural Fit and within Cultural Fit you look at each of your Cultural Values.
In Pinpoint we use a 5-point scale, so you would assess the candidate on each of your Cultural Values and score them from 1 to 5.
A Scorecard looks like this when being filled in:
Comparing completed scorecards
Once members of the hiring team have completed their scorecards, you can view the average for each candidate by opening the job, then clicking 'Scorecards' and then click into the 'Ratings' tab as shown here:
From here you can filter for a certain interview stage and order by a certain attribute. This will show the strongest candidates first (top left) and the weakest candidates last (bottom right). You can also export the data into an excel spreadsheet if you wish.
Why should you use scorecards?
Using scorecards helps keep the interviewer on track and stay focused throughout the interview, using the same set of questions, and keeping to the time allocated.
Scorecards ensure that each interview for a given vacancy is fair and consistent, reducing the risk that subjectivity takes over, which can be influenced by the interviewer's mood or biases. This could undermine the hiring process.
Understanding the specific qualities you want in a candidate can ensure you hire the right person. Yet, without a system for assessing these qualities, it's too easy to stray into unrelated topics.
Learning from our past mistakes is an effective way to prevent them from happening again. On occasion, we may make a hiring mistake and a review of the scorecards for that hire will provide valuable insights that help drive better hiring decisions.
Conversely, if a hire turns out to be particularly impressive you can look back at their scorecards and identify traits to look for in future candidates.
When your hiring team gets together to discuss candidates, imagine having a common scoring system that allows you to directly compare results? With scorecards, you can review each other's feedback and quickly interpret the results.
You can create as many scorecards as you wish and apply them to one or more job vacancies.
Further Reading