Interview Checklist for Employers

Our interview checklist for employers helps you prepare for screening, interviewing, and hiring the best candidates for your business.

Hiring is tough! We've tried to simplify some of the screening and interviewing parts of the recruiting process with our interview checklist for employers. The checklist consists of nine suggested steps you can take in the hiring and screening process.

How to use the interview checklist for employers

This is designed for someone who is setting up their interview and screening process. You can import this checklist into your Taskable account (or create an account for free) by clicking on this link. Use it as a guide for setting up your interview systems and preparing for making your first hires.

What's in the checklist

Review several candidates before reaching out for interviews

When you have candidates start applying, it can be exciting. You might want to reach out immediately to the ones that seem strong. It's a good idea to wait a bit and have a decent-sized sample of candidates before you do. This will let you get a better sense of who the strong candidates are and focus on them for interviews. Otherwise, you'll end up taking up your time and theirs.

This will largely be based on the applicant's resume and prior experience. Consider having a panel review these.

Arrange a phone screening

Have one member of the team do a 15-30 minute phone screening of the top candidates. Here you can share more about the role, ask a few questions, and get a better sense of whether you are a mutually good fit.

Progress the top candidates for an in-person or video call

This could include multiple members of the hiring team or team they will be working with.

Prepare questions

Decide on what you're trying to achieve and learn in the interview, and design your questions for that.

Resources:

• HBR/How to Design a Better Hiring Process
• Workable/Best interview questions to ask candidates (and how to evaluate answers)

Be prepared

Review the candidate's resume and experience, as well as any notes generated from the phone screening. Make sure you know the questions you want to ask and why you are asking them.

Leave time for their questions

Make sure the candidate has plenty of time to ask you questions about the role and company.

Design a technical test

This is a bit controversial because you ask candidates to take personal time to take a technical test or do a challenge. Make sure it's as light touch as possible but will still give you a better sense of their technical expertise. This could be a coding challenge for developers, or for designers, it could be something like redesigning your onboarding flow.

Make sure you limit who you send the challenge to - it should only be top candidates you are seriously considering for the role. Anyone that completes the challenge should get a follow-up interview.

Arrange final interview

This should be with the decision-makers and can be to go over their technical challenge and fit with the company.

Take notes after each round of interviews

Drop them in whatever you are using to track applicants, and make sure the rest of the hiring team has access.

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