Scorecards
Scorecards serve a dual purpose, not only do they evaluate and document feedback from interviews, but they also play a crucial role in mitigating interview bias and establishing a quantitative benchmark for assessing candidates. This structured approach aids in making well-informed, evidence based hiring choices. Each scorecard outlines the essential skills, traits, and qualifications required for success in the prospective role. These criteria are then evaluated during the interview process and documented on the scorecard.
Moreover, scorecards ensure that every individual involved in the assessment process has an equal opportunity to contribute their viewpoints. It is imperative to have a diverse panel of evaluators with varied perspectives, skills and backgrounds to minimise bias and influence decision making. By leveraging scorecards, hiring managers can meticulously review the interview evaluations to arrive at informed hiring decisions.
Completing scorecards is equally vital. Encouraging all stakeholders to share their feedback not only helps in identifying attributes that may have been overlooked by the hiring manager but also enables your internal talent team to furnish candidates with clear, structured, and constructive feedback. And this goes a long way. Candidates put a lot into the interview process and deserve personalised feedback which will help them to grow.
Know what you’re looking for.
The best way to help interviewers gain a comprehensive overview of a candidate, is to set up some key attributes that interviewers should focus on during the interview. You can set them up into categories to help you differentiate between the different areas.
Skills: Testing an individual’s skills may appear crucial as they are essential for performing the required job tasks. Bear in mind that possessing these skills doesn’t guarantee a perfect fit for your team. A successful hire is a combination of various factors. Skills can vary from technical expertise to organisational and problem solving abilities (such as coding, wireframing, proficiency in Adobe Analytics, communication skills etc).
Qualifications: These are the critical criteria you have decided this hire will need to be good at their job. Do they need a Bachelor’s degree in design or a MBA?
Personality traits: Personality plays a crucial role in the hiring process, often ranking among the top three factors to consider. It is essential to assess which personality traits align best with your team and the broader team. Identifying the necessary traits for the job and understanding how this individual will compliment other teams members are key aspects to evaluate during the hiring process
Company cultural values: Company culture can be defined as a shared set of values, attitudes and practices that characterise an organisation. It can be hard to define and thought should be put into what you identify as your values and then evaluate people against them. This builds your company culture, which plays an important part in anyone’s work life.
Structured scorecards
For each attribute, it’s important to add details:
Format feedback in a clear and constructive way
Provide rationale - don’t assume other readers will know what you mean
Provide specific examples
Provide positives and negatives
Provide notes that will be helpful for feedback and decision making
Try not to:
This is probably the biggest one - stay professional and be factual. Don’t write anything that you wouldn’t be happy for the candidate to see. DSARs are real.
Don’t write a novel - be precise
Don’t make blank statements - things like “bad process” or “weak” or “too junior” - this isn’t enough, there needs to be an explanation as to why you think this
Don’t involve subjective judgments of speculation