As the workforce has grown, so too have the challenges and expectations of each role. Creating a well-thought-out candidate scorecard can help keep everyone on the same page regarding what you’re looking for in your ideal candidate.

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The candidate scorecard is a document that outlines the competencies, skills, education, and experiences needed to fill a specific job opening. It helps to hire managers and recruiters to identify and screen candidates that may be a good fit for the role.

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As you're creating your candidate scorecard, start with the end goal in mind. Define the competencies a candidate must possess to perform well in the role, for instance, an AE (account executive) must show proficiency with CRM platforms like Salesforce and Sofware Developer must show proficiencies with coding languages. Once you've created a screening scorecard, think about what type of person you want on your team. 

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Here is a list of things to measure on your candidate scorecard:

1. Culture fit
2. Coachability
3. Curiosity
4. Work ethic
5. Preparation
6. Adaptability
7. Humility
8. Competitiveness
9. Past Performance
10. Brevity & Communication

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When you're finished, your candidate scorecard should include ratings for each competency and a total score that reflects a candidate’s overall qualifications. The higher the score, the more likely they will fit into the role.

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Now, have multiple people interview the candidate and score them. If you have access to interview intelligence software like Pillar, you can easily track and compare the interview performances of the same candidate. This allows recruiters to make more informed decisions about which candidates are the best fit for the role. Pillar's video interview platform will enable you to record, transcribe, highlight and index each interview so that you can share insights from the interview with members of your team.

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When it comes to hiring, a well-rounded scorecard is an essential tool to help you measure each candidate and create an objective score that reflects their true qualifications for the role. With the right scorecard, you can make the best decision for your hiring process and find the perfect candidate for your team.

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Candidate Scorecard Template

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In our e-book, "How to Great Salespeople," we define a 6-step process to hire top talent. The first step is to work with the hiring manager or team leader to create a scorecard template that's aligned with the needs of the team. This candidate scorecard template can be shared with employees, recruiters, and hiring managers as you look for candidates who are a great fit for the role.

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When creating your initial candidate scorecard, make sure that you include the measurements that are most important to you and your team. Here's an example of what a candidate scorecard template should look like:

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•  Qualifications – Is the candidate qualified for the role?
• Experience – Does the candidate have relevant past experience in the field?
• Attitude – What are the candidate’s attitude and level of enthusiasm or energy?
• Communication Skills- How well do they communicate with other team members?
• Leadership Ability – Does the candidate demonstrate potential as a leader or the ability to rally a team?
• Teamwork – How well does the person work with others on the team?
• Technical Knowledge – How informed is the candidate about their specific field? Do they speak "the language?"
• Problem-Solving Skills – How well do they solve complex problems?
• Cultural Fit – Does the candidate have a good understanding of the company's mission, the team’s values, and goals?

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There are thousands of candidate scorecard templates available to download for free, as you build your candidate scorecard, here's another resource that will walk you through the thought process around creating scorecards to assess top talent.

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If you're a Pillar customer, we have 1000+ questions in our database that can be uploaded into your dashboard to use as prompts during the interview. These questions are role-specific and cover topics in each of the 5- 6 main categories you'll measure when interviewing a candidate:

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1. Past Performance Questions
2. Hard Skills
3. Soft Skills
4. Cultural fit Questions
5. Behavioral Questions
6. and, Scenario-based Questions.

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Our mission is to help you make better hires, and that starts with having the right scorecard in place. Don't leave your company culture up to chance. With Pillar, you'll have the insights you need to hire top talent and keep them!

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Recruiting Scorecard

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Amy Volas, the Founder and CEO of Avenue Talent Partners a SaaS executive Recruiter, highly suggests that prospective employees create a job scorecard template to find their dream job. She outlines a simple 5-step process in, "How to Create a Job Scorecard Template to Find Your Dream Gig" (about halfway down the article, she shares a screenshot of her own scorecard you can use as a template).

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I mention the article above because many of your candidates will have already created a job scorecard like this and as an employer, you'll be assessed on these metrics during your interview process.

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A recruiting scorecard will serve as the Northstar for all of your outside talent efforts. The candidate scorecard should provide a clear and concise reflection of the type of people you want to hire. It should also contain KPIs that are specific to your organization's mission, values, goals, and measures of success.

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Here are some recruiter scorecard metrics we'd suggest including:

1. Education, Certifications, and Licenses (if relevant)
2. Past Performance (e.g., Successful project completions, Sales Made/ Revenue Generated)
3. Soft Skills (e.g., Leadership Ability, Adaptability, Problem-Solving Abilities, Communication Proficiency)
4. Technical skills (e.g., coding, software engineering)
5. Cultural Fit (e.g., Alignment with your company’s values and mission)
6. Behavioral Questions (e.g., What do you do when faced with a problem?)
7. Salary Expectations
8. Interview Performance
9. Strengths & Weaknesses

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Evaluating candidates is easy when you have a thorough understanding of who you're looking for and how to measure them. The right candidate is only an intro away!

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Candidate Interview Scorecard

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So far in this article, we've covered many of the essential KPIs you'll need to include when creating a scorecard to measure candidates by in the interview process. Now, let's transition to putting your candidate interview scorecard into action.

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Streamlining your hiring process is simpler than ever when you consider it like a funnel, broken down into steps that require applicants to demonstrate their skills before they can move forward. For example, what qualifications must the candidate possess to go through an initial phone screen? Once that's been completed, what must they show proficiency in to move on to a first interview, panel interview, team interviews, reference checks, and so on?

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Once you have the answer to these questions, it's time to create your candidate scorecard. This will help you measure each applicant against a consistent set of criteria as they move through the funnel — from the initial phone screen to the offer letter. This also allows your team to make objective hiring decisions rather than subjective ones.

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With a standardized/ technical interview scorecard in place, interviewers can easily assess a candidate’s scores in each of the defined areas and decide as a team if the candidate is a good fit for the role. This is why a well-crafted candidate interview scorecard is an invaluable tool when it comes to recruiting top talent — not just for yourself, but for your entire organization.

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The right candidate interview scorecard will help you hire the best person for the job without overlooking or misjudging any potential hires - and Pillar was created for this purpose. Our platform empowers hiring managers and recruiters with the insights to ensure you're bringing in talent that's the perfect fit.

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Interview Scorecard for Managers

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In addition to what we covered in the previous sections, interview scorecards for managers must include one additional factor - leadership.

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A few years ago I worked for a SaaS organization that hired a destructive leader. He was hired because he had a great resume and met all the basic job requirements, but he'd never been in the role he was being hired to perform. Our company scorecard didn’t account for leadership dynamics so his character slipped through the proverbial cracks.

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This leader's destructive tendencies soon became apparent as he began to enforce rules, micro-manage, and reshape the dynamic of the team. As you can imagine, when this happened the team began to struggle. As a result, the entire organization suffered and it took us two quarters to get back on track.

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This experience taught me an important lesson - that interviewing manager candidates isn't just about their technical skills, education, and work experience. When hiring a leader, how they guide a team is almost more important than their technical skills. For this reason, it's essential to include a Leadership scorecard when interviewing managers.

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An interview scorecard for managers should include questions like:

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• "Tell me about the last team you led. What would they say your biggest strengths and weaknesses were?"
• "If your previous team knew you'd never hear their feedback, what would they say about you?"
• "How did you manage each member of your team?"
• "Tell me about how you developed a positive working environment within your team."
• "Did you plan events and other activities to keep your team engaged? How did you decide what to do?"
• "When you first joined the team, what did their performance look like? Can you name specific metrics?"
• "When you left, how had their performance improved?"

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By asking questions like these, you'll be able to better evaluate each manager candidate's leadership skills and establish whether or not they'd be a successful leader for your team. It should go without saying that leaders who are multipliers make great companies, leaders who are micro-managers drive the best employees away, and those employees take valuable knowledge with them.

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If your hiring process isn't getting the results you'd like it to, schedule a demo with someone on our team. We'd love to show you how Pillar can help you make better hires more efficiently.

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