Hiring debrief
Also called: debrief, post-interview discussion
The right way to run one
Three rules:
- Scorecards first, talk after. Each interviewer submits a written scorecard before the meeting. No verbal “I liked them” before the room sees the writing.
- Lowest-power voice first. The most senior person speaks last. Otherwise everyone calibrates to their take.
- Decision in the room. “Let me sleep on it” is the death of momentum and the start of candidate ghosting.
A good debrief takes 30 minutes for a typical SMB final round.
What debriefs surface
The conversation does two useful things at once:
- Surfaces dimensions where interviewers disagree (the interesting cases).
- Forces a decision on the hiring bar — would we hire this person if they were the only candidate? Not “is this person better than the others we’ve seen?”
Where debriefs fail
The common failure: the loudest voice wins. The fix: written scorecards, going around the table, hiring manager closes. Without structure, the debrief is theater.
Where Join fits
Scorecards in Join surface side-by-side in the debrief view, with each interviewer’s written rationale visible to the whole panel. See the features page.
