How do you take good interview notes?

Decide the three to five things the role needs before the call, then take notes as evidence for or against each one, with short, specific quotes and examples. Score each competency, write a one-line recommendation with a real reason, and write it up within a few minutes while the details are fresh.

What should you not write in interview notes?

Anything that isn't about the job. Notes about a candidate's age, family, health, religion, or national origin don't belong in a hiring record and can be a legal liability in many places, not only a source of bias. Keep every line factual and job-related, and check local employment law where you hire.

What's the difference between interview notes and a scorecard?

A scorecard is structured interview notes: instead of a running account of the conversation, you rate the specific competencies the role needs and attach evidence to each. Notes capture what was said; a scorecard turns that into a comparable, defensible decision.

How do you take interview notes without missing what the candidate says?

You can't type and listen at the same time, so the reliable answer is to let something else capture the conversation. A tool like Nod records the interview and writes the recap, so you stay in the conversation and edit notes from a real record afterward instead of splitting your attention.

Guide · July 18, 2026 · 7 min read

How to Take Interview Notes That Help You Decide

By the fifth interview of the day, candidates blur together. You remember a feeling about someone but not the evidence for it, and a feeling is exactly what you should not be deciding on. Good interview notes fix that. They give you specifics to compare, they keep the decision fair, and they save you when a hiring manager asks three weeks later why you passed on someone.

This is a method for taking interview notes when you're hiring, plus a template you can copy. (If you run user research interviews instead of job interviews, you want user interview notes, which is a different job.)

Decide what "good" looks like before the call

Notes are only useful if they map to something. Before the interview, write down the three to five things this role actually needs, and the questions that will tell you whether the candidate has them. Then your notes have somewhere to go: each one is evidence for or against a specific competency, not a running transcript of small talk.

That is the difference between a scorecard and a diary. A scorecard says "system design: strong, walked through a real trade-off from their last project, example below." A diary says "seemed smart, nice person." Only one of those survives a debrief.

What to write down, and what to leave out

Write the concrete stuff:

Short quotes and specific examples, in the candidate's own words where you can.
Evidence for each competency you're scoring, good or bad.
Their answers to your must-ask questions.
Logistics you'll need later: notice period, compensation expectations, location, and work authorization if the role requires it.
Anything you promised to follow up on.

Leave out anything that isn't about the job. Notes on someone's age, family plans, health, accent, or where they're from don't belong in a hiring record, and in many places writing them down is a legal problem, not just a bias one. Keep every line job-related and factual, and check your local employment law if you're unsure what that means where you hire.

Interview notes template

Copy this into your ATS, a doc, or a spreadsheet. One per candidate, per round.

Candidate:            Role:            Interviewer:        Date:

Must-answer questions
- [Q1]:
- [Q2]:

Competencies (rate 1-4, with evidence)
- [Competency 1]: score /4. Evidence:
- [Competency 2]: score /4. Evidence:
- [Competency 3]: score /4. Evidence:

Candidate's questions / concerns:

Logistics: notice period | comp expectation | location / work auth

Recommendation: advance / hold / pass. One line on why:

Keep the recommendation short and honest. If you can't finish "pass, because...", you don't have a reason yet. You have a vibe.

Write them up while they're still fresh

Interview notes decay faster than you think. The specific example the candidate gave, the exact number, the reason they left their last job: those fade within the hour, and they fade first. Block five minutes right after the call to turn your shorthand into something a teammate could read. Wait until the end of the day and you're writing from memory, which keeps the verdict but drops the evidence.

Keep every candidate in one place you can compare

One role is rarely one conversation. It's a screen, a couple of panels, a debrief, and an intake call with the hiring manager, times every candidate in the pipeline. The notes only pay off if you can line them up: who you agreed to move forward, who's waiting on feedback, which two finalists asked about remote. When that lives across a dozen docs and your memory, it doesn't get used.

Take the notes without missing the interview

Here's the catch with all of this. You can't write good notes and actually listen at the same time. The moment you're typing, you've stopped paying attention to the answer.

Nod captures the interview from your Mac's audio, with no bot in the participant list, and hands you a structured recap when the call ends, so you're editing against a real record instead of rebuilding one from memory. Every candidate lands in one place you can ask, so "who did we agree to move to final?" is a question you answer in seconds, across the whole pipeline. Nod listens through your Mac rather than joining the call, so the candidate sees an ordinary one-on-one. That doesn't remove your duty to tell them you're recording, and some places require everyone's consent, so say so up front (see meeting recording consent laws). Audio is held in memory about five seconds, then dropped. Only the transcript and summary are saved, encrypted in the EU, with no model training.

Frequently asked questions

How do you take good interview notes?: Decide the three to five things the role needs before the call, then take notes as evidence for or against each one, with short, specific quotes and examples. Score each competency, write a one-line recommendation with a real reason, and write it up within a few minutes while the details are fresh.
What should you not write in interview notes?: Anything that isn't about the job. Notes about a candidate's age, family, health, religion, or national origin don't belong in a hiring record and can be a legal liability in many places, not only a source of bias. Keep every line factual and job-related, and check local employment law where you hire.
What's the difference between interview notes and a scorecard?: A scorecard is structured interview notes: instead of a running account of the conversation, you rate the specific competencies the role needs and attach evidence to each. Notes capture what was said; a scorecard turns that into a comparable, defensible decision.
How do you take interview notes without missing what the candidate says?: You can't type and listen at the same time, so the reliable answer is to let something else capture the conversation. A tool like Nod records the interview and writes the recap, so you stay in the conversation and edit notes from a real record afterward instead of splitting your attention.