First Impressions Of The Candidate
While you may use a rating scale to submit an organised feedback document, you may mention what attracted your attention about the candidate. This can also mean sharing your first impression. You can reflect on their character or personality, and if your impression changed or remained constant throughout the meet.
Related:Job Interview Tips: How to Make a Great Impression
Synopsis Of The Interview Experience
You may include a synopsis that details how the session went and how a candidate presented themselves. You can use this when comparing several shortlisted candidates. The summary can answer the following questions:
-
Did they respond to your questions directly?
-
Were they distracted or focused during the interview?
-
Were they keen to understand more about the position, the department and organisation?
-
Would this individual be a person you’d enjoy working with every day?
Related:How To Answer Situational Interview Questions
Top Employee Evaluation Phrases For Effective Feedback
The Indeed Editorial Team comprises a diverse and talented team of writers, researchers and subject matter experts equipped with Indeed’s data and insights to deliver useful tips to help guide your career journey.
The employee evaluation process allows supervisors to provide helpful feedback to their employees, especially in performance reviews. Having the knowledge of what to write can make the procedure more thorough, effective and timely for each party.
In this article, we will be looking at some employee evaluation phrases that can be used in providing feedback to employees or managers.
Don’t Miss: How To Prepare For Green Card Interview
What Should I Do To Pass The Job Interview Evaluation
To pass the evaluation, you must give your best on the job interview. You can research about the possible questions that you can encounter. You can research about all the criteria that is needed for you to be hired within that specific job. You can also research for tips that you can use in the job interview.
What To Include In Interview Feedback

Review this list to determine what you should include when writing interview feedback:
-
First impressions of the candidate: This could include initial assessments about their character or personality and how your impression changed or stayed the same throughout the interview.
-
Insights into both interpersonal and technical skills: When writing interview feedback, it’s important that you equally present a candidate’s interpersonal and technical skills so members of your team can properly evaluate their potential as an employee. For instance, if you say a candidate has excellent verbal communication, active listening and adaptability skills, make sure you also mention their proficiency with word processing software, project management experience and public speaking skills.
-
Summary of the interview experience: You should include a summary that outlines how the interview went and how a candidate conducted themselves. This helps the hiring team when reviewing interview feedback for multiple candidate’s at once.
-
Clear suggestions moving forward: Directly following the summary, provide your opinion on whether you think a candidate should continue through the hiring process or receive a job offer. You also need to briefly explain your decision.
Related: What Are Interview Guides?
Don’t Miss: What To Ask Babysitter Interview
List Down The Pros And Cons
For the candidates reference and yours, you need to list down the pros and cons of an interview. List down the pros for them to keep that trait and cons to know what they can improve.
This is where you find the strengths and if you can consider him in the future if you are not interested yet in him.
Example: expressed a great knowledge in drug development but we are currently looking for people in data and analytics. In the future, we can consider him if a role in the development comes up.
How Job Interview Feedback Fits In The Applicant Journey
Job interview evaluation influences other applicant touchpoints. As such, it can help you improve job descriptions, interview scripts, and other candidate communications. Equally important, it helps members of your hiring team become better at evaluating candidates. By all means, its a key best practice for any company that is serious about improving hiring outcomes.
Don’t Miss: How To Conduct An Interview Questions
Help Them Set Smart Goals
You can help your peer or direct report move forward in their career by suggesting SMART goals. SMART stands for goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. This system, which is credited to management guru Peter Drucker, helps people avoid setting goals that are too vague or unrealistic. It also identifies an action plan and the support needed to make someones goal possible. .
To make the goal specific, be clear about what the person should accomplish and why he/she should do it. Measurable goals mean there should be a way for the employee to know if he is progressing towards your goals. To be achievable, the person must be able to accomplish it within a certain time. On the other hand, relevance answers whether or not the goal is worth pursuing based on the employees long-term goals. Lastly, a time-bound goal means that there is a deadline for when it should be accomplished .
Keep In Mind Dos And Donts
Here are some dos and donts to help orient you:
- Write conversationally, in your own voice
- Keep your formatting clear and readable by avoiding big blocks of text
- Explain your thinking by providing examples from the interview
Dont:
- Lean on speculation and subjective judgments where you can avoid it
- Make blanket statements without explaining them
There are, of course, some best practices for setting up your feedback forms so that all this advice flows from the structure youre working with.
You May Like: How To Interview A Person
Examples Of Interview Feedback For Unsuccessful Candidates
We are providing positive interview feedback examples because we believe its important to boost the morale of candidates even if youre rejecting them. This is why youll not find any negative interview feedback examples here.
Here are some of the best examples of interview feedback for unsuccessful candidates:
+ Best Examples Of Employee Evaluation Comments
Do you want a free Training Software?
We have the #1 Online Training Software for employee training & assessment
Employee evaluation comments are far more important than most of us would like to think. No matter how exhaustive your performance reviews are, you wont achieve much if you dont communicate them to your employees the right way.
Look at this data:
- 17% of employees feel that the feedback they get is not specific.
- Less than 3 in 10 employees think their performance reviews are fair and accurate.
- Only half of the employees understand whats expected of them at work.
These stats highlight the importance of the quality of employee performance evaluation comments. To ensure your employees get the right message on their performance, you need to keep your comments specific and remove any room for ambiguity.
Also, even when the performance is negative, you should never make your comments way too harsh.
The idea is to enable your employees to understand where they performed well and where they can improve without feeling confused and demotivated.
With this in mind, in this post, we look at the 100 best examples of employee reviews with a specific focus on comments. They are arranged under different key performance areas to help you learn the right feedback to provide to your employees.
Also Check: What To Expect In A Teaching Interview
Allow Personal Biases To Skew The Picture
Its just human nature regardless of how good your interview skills are, its almost impossible to be totally objective about every applicant in the talent pool. Sometimes we develop a personal preference for one candidate over another, or allow our experiences to unconsciously bias us against well-qualified candidates.
Analyzing the results of your candidate feedback surveys using AI means that when you come to deliver your feedback, you can be sure youre offering the candidate a fair and balanced picture of why they did or didnt progress in the hiring process.
Example #5 The Straight

For most hiring managers, avoiding the real reason for not hiring someone is a lot easier than facing the truth.
After all, âWe found someone who is a better fitâ is a lot easier to type than âYou kind of seemed like a know-it-all who isnât a team player.â ð¬
But as straight-shooter Sarah Corboliou, Head of Employee Success at Unito, found out when she accidentally sent her raw interview notes to a candidate â sometimes even the ugly truth can get a great response.
Sarah had written in her notes that she found the candidate to be âpretty arrogant.â
âI was expecting a super bad Glassdoor review or something ,â Sarah shared. âBut instead, the person replied saying âWell, you must be pretty embarrassed, but itâs actually refreshing to hear what recruiters really think of me for once. Would you mind jumping on a quick call to discuss how I can present myself better?ââ
The result? The two had a super constructive discussion that ended up changing Sarahâs opinion of him. After all that, she was open to hiring him for other roles in the future .
Recommended Reading: How To Have A Good Job Interview
Examples Of Negative L& m Review Comments
36. We witnessed a lack of transparency and accountability in how you functioned
37. We feel theres a need for you to improve your relationships with others
38. Theres a lack of planning in how you managed and delivered on priorities
39. You need to develop active listening skills
40. We expect you to show more clarity of activities and goals
If you feel that theres room for improvement in the employees at leadership positions in your organization then apart from providing detailed feedback with supervisor comments and recommendations, regular training sessions can help. Here are a few training areas that you can focus on:
Benefits Of A Structured Interview Feedback Process
Recommended Reading: What Should I Ask In An Interview
Examples Of Positive Problem
11. You adopted a practical approach to problem-solving
12. You focused on solutions what could be done and how instead of dwelling on problems
13. You took full ownership of tackling challenges instead of passing the buck
14. You stayed calm no matter what type of problem you were presented with
15. From time to time, you showed your creativity in offering solutions to problems
The Problem Solving Perspective
When you know your problems you can clearly define the solution youre looking for. So, before you go hiring your best friend from the neighborhood because you want to have lunch with them and chat about everything in the world because its fun, you need to ask the question of how effective of a solution is this to my problem, or will it create a new problem? Nothing wrong with hiring your friend, Im just using that as an example. I say, hire solutions and make a new friends.
You May Like: How To Watch Meghan And Harry Oprah Interview
The Problem Solver Hiring Philosophy
Before you create your interview script and candidate evaluation form, establish your overall philosophy. In the following Quora post, Ryan Duffee, HR manager and consultant, explains how he focuses on finding problem solvers.
When hiring someone, you should always be looking for a problem solver. A business in itself is a problem solver. The company you represent is providing a solution to a problem . The product or service you provide is a solution. Inside your business, problems will come up. Especially new start-ups or businesses who have been around forever and operating on antiquated tech or software, policy creation, accounting, personnel, etc.
Whenever an organization makes a decision to hire, it is because there is a problem and they need to bring someone in to fix it. Dont think problems are all negative either. Hiring someone to take on an increase in workload is a positive problem to have. It goes both ways. Moreover, when looking at resumes or interviewing people, the one thing on your mind is, can or will this person fix my problem?
Know The Needs in Your Organization
My job becomes a fact finder to go to the executive team to say, Everyone, we have problems X, Y & Z My recommendation is to hire or not hire more personnel to handle the increased work load. If we hire 1, 2 this is what we can expect in terms of increased production. If the ROI on hiring a problem solver is greater than the expenses, it makes sense.
Sample Candidate Evaluation Forms By Industry
An interview evaluation form is a great way to help you further structure an interview. It’s a way for you and your hiring team to carefully go over and agree upon the criteria against which a candidate will be judged. Further prepare yourself by checking out these sample interview evaluation forms by job type and/or industry.
Also Check: What Should You Say In A Job Interview
Example #6 The Helpful Resources Email
Is there something simple you can do to help this candidate be better in the future? Maybe a masterclass or an article you read recently that they could benefit from?
When appropriate, try to provide resources to help the candidate further their career. This shows youâve been paying attention and that you as a human and a brand are invested in their future⦠especially if their future could be at your company one day.
This interview feedback example is especially helpful for candidates for entry level roles and younger employees who may be at the start of their career.
Automate The Process When Possible

Set up automated notifications after each interview to remind interviewers they need to share their feedback. To help hiring teams share their evaluations and keep every comment organized, consider investing in effective software. Workable is an all-in-one recruiting platform that lets you share interview feedback with your hiring team in a safe and collaborative environment. Learn how to:
Read Also: How To Resolve Conflict Interview Question
Example #2 The Didn’t Get The Job Email
Like it or not, we all know this post interview email as a necessary part of the hiring process.
As a brand, you should always let employees know the status of their candidacy â and being communicative is a huge way to improve the candidate experience.
Before you sit down to write the infamous âdidn’t get the jobâ email, make sure youâre in the right state of mind. Be prepared to give this email the time and effort it deserves and allow yourself plenty of space to be sincere and authentic in your message.
You want to keep your email simple, while still showing the candidate that you were paying attention during the interview. The candidate should walk away from this email feeling seen, and not as just another task you had to tick off the list.
What Not To Do When Giving Feedback
Candidates who didnt get the job will probably be disappointed. Here are a few tips about what you shouldnt do, so you can make sure your feedback is both valuable and constructive:
- Dont give them feedback if they dont want it. Check with them to see if theyd find it valuable before you send it.
- Dont make it personal. Its natural to hire people we like but if you just dont like them, dont tell them. Its not helpful and it wont leave a good impression.
- Dont be rude or condescending. Make sure the tone of your response is neutral.
- Dont give them false hope. If you have no intention of considering them for a role in future, dont tell them that or say youll keep their CV on file.
- Dont provide too much information or be careless with your response. If in doubt, consult a legal representative to make sure youre not opening yourself up to any future come-back from an un-hired candidate.
Recommended Reading: What To Wear To An Interview Women
The Major Keystones Of Ideal Feedback On A Candidate Interview Process
Now you must have learned the evaluation process of a candidate. Once the evaluation is done and youve decided, the time has come to send the feedback to unsuccessful candidates.
Are you still figuring out how to give interview feedback to candidates?
Heres how you can provide great feedback on a candidate interview process, with examples of interview feedback for unsuccessful candidates:
Insights Into Both Interpersonal And Technical Skills
With the goal of making comprehensive hiring decisions, note the candidate’s soft and hard skills. This can be especially pertinent if certain skills are required to do the job well, so make sure to observe and listen carefully.
In the process of writing feedback from an interview, provide balanced information on the candidate’s soft and hard skills, so the hiring team can properly evaluate their potential as an employee. For example, if you mention a candidate has great interpersonal and teamwork skills, make sure you also speak about their expertise with project management software and data analysis.
Also Check: What To Put In An Interview Thank You Email