What is an interview rubric?
An interview rubric, also known as a hiring scorecard, is a guide for evaluating a candidate’s abilities during an interview. It offers role-specific criteria for interviewers to assess, along with a shared reference of quality responses to each question. The framework helps interviewers gather evidence and match a candidate’s answers with the role’s requirements.
Why use an interview rubric?
Moving away from unstructured interviews can unlock several benefits for your hiring process. Using a rubric for interviews can enhance fairness, quality and efficiency while elevating the candidate experience.
- Fairness: Rubrics help reduce bias by creating a structured method for evaluating all candidates. When you assess all candidates against the same job-relevant competencies, such as transferable skills, years of experience or formal education, you can make more accurate and fair hiring decisions.
- Quality: Structured hiring processes incorporating rubrics can increase your chances of hiring a candidate who excels on the job. A consistent evaluation process lets you focus on the qualifications that matter most for performance. For example, formal education may be less important for your editor role, if candidates have proven copyediting or proofreading abilities.
- Efficiency: A rubric can save you time by simplifying the evaluation process and making it easy to compare candidates and score them objectively.
- Candidate experience: A structured process can lead to a better experience for candidates, as they can better demonstrate their abilities when the evaluation is transparent and consistent.
4 components of an interview rubric
Interview rubrics can differ between companies, but including the following four components can help you create a powerful and effective tool:
- Role-specific competencies: A competency is the expertise or aptitude needed to perform a job successfully, including knowledge, skills or abilities. Examples include relationship building, accountability, teamwork, decision-making, customer service and communication.
- Structured interview questions: For each competency, you should ask every candidate the same interview question. Behavioral questions allow candidates to demonstrate their skills with specific examples from past experience. If a candidate lacks direct experience, you can pose the question hypothetically.
- A rating scale for performance: Rating scales use descriptive labels to indicate a candidate’s level of performance for a specific competency. Examples of labels you might use include:
- Exceeds Expectations
- Meets Expectations
- Partially Meets Expectations
- Doesn’t Meet Expectations
- Descriptions of evidence for each rating: Performance quality descriptions provide interviewers with references for what defines each rating. For example, a response that meets expectations for a communication competency may include a clear, concise answer with a relevant example, while a response that exceeds expectations may also demonstrate active listening and insightful follow-up questions.
How to use a rubric scoring system in your interviews
To get the most out of a rubric, you can develop questions assessing the competencies you have identified for the job. Before interviewing candidates, your interviewers could review the rubric to understand the competencies and rating scales.
During the interview, pose the same questions to every candidate. Following their response, you can match the answer to the desired description in the rating scale. This practice may help you determine their performance level for each competency.
Once the interviews are complete, you can review the rubric scores before advancing certain candidates in the hiring process. Consider also communicating with collaborators, such as recruiters, hiring managers or human resources (HR) managers, before making a final decision.
Interview rubric examples
Consider two examples of how a rubric might be structured for different roles:
Example 1: Customer service representative
| Competency | Empathy |
| Question | “Tell me about a time you handled a difficult customer. What was the situation and what was the outcome?” |
| Rating Scale (1-4) | 1 = Dismissed customer’s feelings
2 = Acknowledged feelings but didn’t adapt tone 3 = Showed understanding and adapted communication 4 = Validated feelings and found a positive resolution |
| Notes/Evidence | [Placeholder Text] |
| Competency | Communication |
| Question | “How would you explain a complex technical issue to a customer who isn’t tech-savvy?” |
| Rating Scale (1-4) | 1 = Used jargon and was unclear
2 = Explained the issue but was still complex 3 = Used simple language and analogies 4 = Simplified the issue and confirmed understanding |
| Notes/Evidence | [Placeholder Text] |
| Competency | Problem-Solving |
| Question | “Describe a situation where you had to find a creative solution to a customer’s problem.” |
| Rating Scale (1-4) | 1 = Couldn’t find a solution
2 = Offered a standard solution that didn’t fit 3 = Found a practical alternative 4 = Developed a unique solution that delighted the customer |
| Notes/Evidence | [Placeholder Text] |
Example 2: Software developer
| Competency | Technical Skill |
| Question | “Walk me through the architecture of a recent project you worked on. What were the technical challenges?” |
| Rating Scale (1-4) | 1 = Provided vague description of technologies
2 = Described technologies but not challenges 3 = Explained architecture and challenges 4 = Detailed explanation with thoughtful trade-off analysis |
| Notes/Evidence | [Placeholder Text] |
| Competency | Collaboration |
| Question | “How do you approach code reviews, both as a reviewer and as the person whose code is being reviewed?” |
| Rating Scale (1-4) | 1 = Resists feedback and provides unhelpful reviews
2 = Accepts feedback but offers little in return 3 = Provides constructive feedback and incorporates suggestions 4 = Fosters a collaborative review culture and mentors others |
| Notes/Evidence | [Placeholder Text] |
| Competency | Adaptability |
| Question | “Tell me about a time you had to learn a new technology quickly for a project.” |
| Rating Scale (1-4) | 1 = Showed resistance to learning new tools
2 = Learned the basics but struggled to apply them 3 = Became proficient in the new technology 4 = Mastered the technology and taught others on the team |
| Notes/Evidence | [Placeholder Text] |
