Job interview notes: a template that writes itself

Interview notes have one job: to let you, and anyone else on the panel, make a fair decision later from what the candidate actually said. Impressions fade within a day and blend between candidates. Evidence written against the role's criteria does not.

This guide covers what to write, what to leave out, a structured template you can copy, and how Poffle's interview template applies the same rules when it writes notes from a recording.

Write evidence, not a verdict

Keep three things apart that tend to get mixed together on the page:

1. What the candidate said or did. “Described cutting checkout errors by moving payment validation earlier in the flow; gave the error rates before and after.”
2. How it relates to a criterion. “Relevant to: debugging production issues.”
3. Your assessment. Record this separately, against your organisation's scoring guide, after the interview.

Keeping the assessment out of the running notes makes them more useful to the rest of the panel. Other interviewers can read the evidence and form their own view before the debrief.

Evidence or impression?

What to leave out

Do not write down, guess or comment on personal characteristics that have nothing to do with the job: age, family plans, religion, health, nationality and similar. If a candidate mentions one, the notes don't need it. Descriptions of appearance or accent don't belong either; they are not evidence of skill, and they make notes harder to share.

Rules differ by country, so follow your organisation's guidance. For context, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says information requested before hiring should be limited to what is essential for deciding whether a person is qualified for the job. UK government guidance tells employers not to ask candidates about protected characteristics, or whether they are married or have or plan to have children. See the EEOC's page on prohibited practices and GOV.UK's recruitment guidance.

A structured interview template

Interview · [Role] · [Candidate] · [Date]
Interviewers: [Names]
Criteria for this interview: [criterion 1], [criterion 2], [criterion 3]

Background
- [Relevant experience the candidate described]

Question 1: [question]
- Evidence: [what they said, with specifics]
- Criterion: [which one]

Question 2: [question]
- Evidence:
- Criterion:

Candidate's questions
- [What they asked] · [what we answered]

Follow-ups
- [ ] [Name] will [send the exercise / check a reference / answer a question] by [date]

Assessment: recorded separately in [scoring form]

Ask every candidate for the role the same core questions in the same order. The notes then line up across candidates, and the debrief becomes a comparison of evidence rather than of memories.

If you record the interview

A recording lets you listen instead of typing through the conversation. It also deserves care. Tell the candidate before you start, explain why you record and how long you keep it, and offer to continue without recording. Check your organisation's policy first; some don't allow interview recordings at all.

Poffle keeps recordings, transcripts and notes on your Mac and does not announce recordings to anyone, so telling the candidate is up to you. Once the notes are ready and the decision is made, you can remove the audio and keep the notes: open the meeting's options menu, choose Delete…, then Delete recording only. The transcript, notes and speaker names stay; the audio files move to the Trash, so empty it too. Delete meeting and notes removes everything.

How Poffle's interview template works

Poffle uses its interview template when a meeting's title contains words such as “interview”, “candidate”, “screening” or “phone screen”, or a common term for a job interview in one of Poffle's other languages, such as Vorstellungsgespräch, entrevista or 面接. The notes use the sections Background, Strengths, Concerns and Follow-ups.

The template tells the on-device model never to note, infer or evaluate age, gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion, health, disability, family or other protected characteristics, and not to rate the candidate. The notes describe what was said; the decision stays with the panel. As with any generated notes, read them against the transcript. Each point links to its source passage, and you can play that moment to check the wording.

A title like “User interview” is treated as a customer conversation, because the phrase usually means user research. For a job interview whose title isn't recognised, open the meeting's options menu and choose Rewrite notes as > Interview. Follow-ups such as “I'll send you the exercise by Monday” appear under Action items with their owner and date, and Remind me adds one to Apple Reminders.

Notes are written with Apple Intelligence on the Mac when the device and language support it; otherwise the transcript is still available. See the templates guide for the other styles, and customer call notes for user research sessions.