“If you’re going to put someone through 5 rounds, 2 presentations, and a culture dinner, the least you can do is tell them why they didn’t get the job.”
It’s a common frustration.
Just read your LinkedIn feed. I swear it’s getting worse.
Candidates are investing serious energy in researching your business, solving case studies and meeting teams, only to get ghosted or hit with a vague “not the right fit” email.
No context. No feedback. Nothing useful.
And it’s not just candidates who are fed up. Founders, hiring managers, and even seasoned HR teams are exhausted by decision-making that feels rushed, inconsistent, or entirely gut-driven.
But there’s a simple way to make this whole process fairer, faster, and actually more human.
A hiring rubric
Sounds flash. Sounds difficult. But really isn’t.
Because in the same way that you dont make product pivots or feature calls without a sound decision-making process, your hiring calls should be the same.
It just makes sense.
But too many companies wing it; they either have no idea about this step, or if they do, it’s too much admin, so they just skip it.
This is the root of most of their hiring problems.
🧭 Err, What’s a Hiring Rubric?
A hiring rubric is a structured scorecard that defines what you’re assessing in interviews and how to assess it.
What and How. Simple
So instead of “going with your gut,” a rubric makes your decisions visible, explainable, and consistent. It lists the core competencies a role requires (e.g communication, problem-solving, or technical expertise) and outlines what a strong vs. weak answer looks like for each.
It’s like giving your interviewers a map and giving candidates a fair shot at the destination.
⚙️ Why It Works
Rubrics don’t just make your process look polished; they solve real problems:
- Better decisions: You’re assessing candidates to the role requirements, not vibe to vibe, or worse, to each other (please try not to compare candidates to each other, some are naturally better interviewers and some are more gregarious for example – but these aren’t things you’re interviewing for).
- Clearer feedback: You can specifically tell candidates why they did well (or didn’t).
- Faster hiring: Debriefs take 15 minutes when everyone’s aligned.
- Less bias: You’re hiring based on skills, competencies and behaviours, not background.
- More trust: Candidates feel respected, even if they’re not selected.
And the best part is that you don’t need to be a big tech company to use one.
🛠️ The Startup-Ready Rubric Template
Here’s a basic hiring rubric you can steal, tweak, and run with—designed for startups and growing teams.
A scoring scale could look like this: 1-4, with each score having a guide or description of how relevant a candidate’s response to a question might be.
🧪 Sample Rubric Table
These competencies should be the role requirements that you landed on when you defined the Position Description. (You did define the role requirements before you started interviewing, didn’t you? 😬)
📊 Binary vs 1–4 Scales
For high-volume or early funnel roles, a binary “Meets/Doesn’t Meet” score might be faster.
But for most key hires—especially in startups—the 1–4 scale is better. It encourages interviewer reflection, gives nuance to discussions, and makes feedback a breeze to write.
Pro tip: Use the same scoring scale across all competencies. It reduces cognitive load and makes decision-making easier.
Post Interview
So the interview has wrapped up. You and your candidates have all said your goodbyes. What next?
- The interviewing team are most likely going into another meeting straight away.
- Ideally, your TA/Recruiter has put a 15-minute slot in your calendar for interview reflection and filling out a scorecard. Preferably, in your ATS.
- Don’t share scores with each other yet, dont influence each other’s thinking.
- Your TA/Recruiter should have also booked an interview debrief session. Later that day, or early the next day at the latest.
- At this session, they ask the interviewing team, one by one, to talk through their scorecards and the reasoning behind their scoring decisions.
- This is a brilliant opportunity to potentially challenge each other’s thinking and stress test your hiring decisions.
- You’ll sometimes find that two interviewers come away with vastly different perceptions of the same interview. This is perfectly reasonable. This is what discussion and collaborative decision-making are for.
- In this meeting, you should all agree on the next step. i.e. Reject, Accept (either make an offer or move to the next stage) or Request more information (was something missed, is there something critical that we need clarity on?)
- Your TA/Recruiter, if you have one, will lead this meeting and then take action on the agreed next steps.
🔧 Implementation Tips (Tailored by Role)
If you’re a founder or hiring solo:
- Pick the experience and competency traits that matter for this hire
- Write your interview questions for each trait
- Define what a “1” and a “4” look like
- Share a simple Google Doc with your advisor or co-founder
If you’re a team lead:
- Use the rubric to anchor panel interviews
- Run a short calibration session first
- Score independently, then compare in debrief
If you’re HR or TA at a growing company:
- Build a shared rubric bank
- Train interviewers using real examples
- Tie rubric scores to candidate feedback
- Integrate rubric fields into your ATS 👇🏻
Use Your ATS.
Most contemporary ATS’s have some kind of scorecard system. These can generally be tailored, with rubric banks stored and assigned to each role. Using this functionality lets you get very clear and systematic in the way your hiring teams evaluate and make decisions and then how you as a company treat your candidates.
🔥 IMPORTANT – The interviewing team should all have access to the rubric before the interview so that, if possible, they can digest and reflect on the conversation (note, not interrogation) as soon as possible afterwards. In an ideal world, this gives the most immediate and maybe “real” response.
That’s not to say that people can’t change their minds, but getting thoughts out as soon as possible is a good place to start. It’s better than trying to replay or recall the small details the next day, for example.
That’s it. Give it a go. If you want some help defining or building out a rubric, hit me up. I’m happy to help. Here’s a Notion Page with a template you can copy and customise.
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Simon
