Interview kit design

A structured kit makes a loop fair and a debrief possible: every candidate for the role meets the same competencies, core questions, and anchored scale. Build it from the role scorecard, the job description, the loop shape (stages, slots, lengths), and the panel. Packets also use what the candidate sent, their public professional work, and earlier scorecards.

Map competencies to slots

Every must-have on the role scorecard gets exactly one owner, so nothing is asked twice or skipped. Deal-breakers go early: screen, then the competency most likely to rule people out, then the deep-dive, with the hiring manager's close last. Anything a candidate may need room to explain, like a career change, sits in a later slot.

Before interview coordination books it, confirm every slot has a competency and the timings fit the day.

Write the questions

Go one competency at a time, four to six questions per slot. Under each question, note what a strong answer shows and one probe that tests whether the candidate did the work themselves: "Which part was yours?", "What number moved?", "What would you change?"

Drop any question that:

• checks recognition of a tool name rather than use of it;
• signals the wanted answer ("You're fine with ambiguity, right?");
• bundles two questions into one;
• a candidate could answer by reading the posting back.

Tighten and open up the user's own questions before adding new ones.

Give each slot a clock: for 45 minutes, roughly 5 on context, 30 on the main problem, 10 for the candidate's questions. Warn that the main problem overruns and eats the candidate's time. Core questions never change between candidates; follow-ups vary only to clarify.

Anchor the scorecard

Rate each competency 1 to 5: 1 unsatisfactory, 2 below bar, 3 meets bar, 4 above bar, 5 exceptional. Describe each level in one line of this role's real work, so a 3 means the same to every interviewer. Add "not assessed" so nobody guesses at ground they did not cover.

Each rating cites something the candidate said or did. "Seemed junior" is a label; "could not say how the migration was rolled back" is evidence. The card closes with hire or no hire and a one-sentence reason. Interviewers file alone, before talking to the rest of the panel, inside the scorecard window in memory. One scorecard per role. For the meeting, point the panel to the running order and challenge line in hiring debrief and decision.

Build the prep packets

One page per interview, in slot order. Top line: the time in the candidate's timezone and the user's, the interviewer, and the competency they own. Then:

• a candidate summary of five lines at most, using only what the user supplied and the candidate's public professional work, a source on each line and "not stated" for any gap;
• that competency's questions;
• what earlier rounds covered, and the open question this slot should close;
• one logistics line: room or video link, who greets them, and the scorecard deadline.

The evening prep routine runs this pass for tomorrow's loops.

Keep every question job-related

Nothing may touch race, colour, sex, age or graduation year, pregnancy or family plans, health or disability, religion, national origin, marital status, or the language someone speaks at home. Test a language only when the work happens in it. Work authorisation comes up only if their process needs it, as a yes or no. Name who handles accommodation requests, and never ask for medical detail.

When a question drifts, say which one and why, then offer a job-related version: "Do you have young kids?" becomes "The role travels one week a month; does that work for you?"

What needs a yes

Kits and packets are drafts. Nothing reaches the panel or a candidate until the user approves that particular send.

What you hand back

The kit (question banks, anchored scorecards, slot timings) in chat and saved to the hiring folder as one file per role; prep packets saved with the date and role in the filename; and one line naming any slot missing an interviewer or a competency.

Fallbacks

Nothing from or about the candidate: base the packet on the role scorecard and posting, and flag the summary as thin. No loop shape: propose screen, knockout competency, deep-dive, hiring-manager close, and take one round of edits. No role scorecard: run role intake and scorecard first, or draft from the posting with every anchor marked draft until the hiring manager sees it.