How to fill out a Greenhouse scorecard from your interview notes
On this page
- What is on a Greenhouse scorecard?
- How do you turn your notes into a scorecard, step by step?
- How do you choose a rating on the five-point scale?
- What should Key Take-Aways look like?
- What if a notetaker or AI drafted your notes?
- What about screens that were not scheduled in Greenhouse?
- Can you change a scorecard after you submit it?
- Questions people ask
A Greenhouse scorecard has four parts you fill in after the interview: Key Take-Aways, answers to the interview questions, a rating for each attribute on a five-point scale (Definitely Not, No, Mixed or Neutral, Yes, Strong Yes), and an Overall Recommendation (Definitely Not, No, Yes or Strong Yes). To fill it from notes, work in this order: question answers first, then attribute ratings from that evidence, then Key Take-Aways, then the recommendation, and click Submit Scorecard. This reflects Greenhouse's support documentation as of October 2026.
This page is for the person holding the notes, whether typed, handwritten or drafted by an AI notetaker. For which notetakers write into Greenhouse and how, see AI notetaker for Greenhouse. For designing the scorecard itself rather than filling it, see the interview scorecard template.
What is on a Greenhouse scorecard?
Greenhouse's interviewer guide to interview kits (updated September 21, 2026) and its scorecard overview list the fields on the Scorecard tab of the interview kit:
| Section | What goes there | Who sees it |
|---|---|---|
| Key Take-Aways | Your conclusions, pros, cons and anything later interviewers should follow up | The hiring team, per your permission settings |
| Private Notes | Sensitive information, opened from the Private Notes link | Only Job Admins and Site Admins with permission to view private candidate information |
| Note for Other Interviewers | What the next interviewer should probe | Public: shows in later interviewers' Interview Prep tab and the candidate's activity feed |
| Interview Questions | The candidate's answers to the questions in your kit, one field per question | The hiring team |
| "Does the candidate show clear competence in the following areas?" | A rating for each attribute; focus attributes for your interview are at the top, highlighted in yellow | The hiring team |
| Overall Recommendation | "Did the candidate pass the interview?" | The hiring team |
Greenhouse's Scorecards FAQ adds two details worth knowing before you start: you cannot upload attachments to a scorecard, and the overall recommendation is optional, so a scorecard submitted without one is recorded as "No Decision". That is allowed, and it is almost never what the hiring manager wants to read.
How do you turn your notes into a scorecard, step by step?
- Open the right kit. Use the interview kit link in your calendar invite, or find the interview on My Dashboard. Check the candidate's name and the interview name; a panel can have several kits for one candidate.
- Fill the question fields from your notes. For each question, write what the candidate actually said: the situation, what they did, the result, any numbers. Short quotes are better than your summary of them. This is the evidence everything else rests on.
- Rate the focus attributes. Rate the highlighted ones first, each from the evidence in the question fields, not from your overall impression. Leave an attribute unrated if the interview did not cover it; the guide notes the attribute fields are optional.
- Write Key Take-Aways last but one. Two or three sentences of conclusion, then pros, cons and follow-ups (format below). Writing this after the ratings stops a general feeling from leaking into every attribute.
- Move anything sensitive to Private Notes. Pay expectations, a competing offer, a personal reason for leaving that the candidate shared in confidence.
- Leave a Note for Other Interviewers if the next round should probe something you could not. Remember it is public.
- Choose the Overall Recommendation and click Submit Scorecard. Do it the same day; Greenhouse's default reminder arrives an hour after the scheduled end of the interview for a reason.
How do you choose a rating on the five-point scale?
Greenhouse's FAQ defines the five icons (Definitely Not, No, Mixed or Neutral, Yes, Strong Yes) but leaves what each means for a given attribute to your team. Without agreed anchors, one interviewer's Yes is another's Strong Yes. If your team has none, these evidence-based anchors are a reasonable default; they are our suggestion, not Greenhouse's definitions.
| Rating | Use it when your notes show |
|---|---|
| Strong Yes | A specific, recent example where the candidate did this at or above the level the role needs, with a result they could quantify or explain in detail under follow-up questions |
| Yes | A specific example at the level the role needs, with ordinary detail |
| Mixed or Neutral | Evidence both ways, or one good example and one weak one; say which in Key Take-Aways |
| No | General or hypothetical answers only, or an example below the level the role needs |
| Definitely Not | Clear evidence against: a gap the role cannot carry, or an answer that contradicted the resume |
| (leave blank) | The attribute was not covered in your interview |
Why focus attributes matter: in a Greenhouse analysis of about 10.3 million scorecards from jobs created in 2022, Greenhouse's research team estimated that comparability between interviewers' scorecards was 31 to 38 percent higher when an interview used focus attributes, and suggested three to five per interview (Greenhouse, "How Focus Attributes improve comparability of interview scorecards"). If your kit has ten highlighted attributes for a 45-minute interview, ask the recruiter to cut it; you cannot gather evidence for ten things in 45 minutes.
What should Key Take-Aways look like?
Greenhouse asks for conclusions, pros, cons and anything to follow up. A structure that reads well in the candidate roundup, shown with an invented example:
Conclusion: Yes. Strong on stakeholder management and SQL depth;
unproven on leading a team.
Pros:
- Led the billing migration end to end; named the two rollback
decisions and why ("we cut over region by region after the first
one failed reconciliation").
- Clear on trade-offs: chose a weekly release over daily, with reasons.
Cons:
- No example of managing people; "mentored two juniors" only.
- Vague on budget ownership when asked twice.
Follow up next round: people leadership (ask for a hard
performance conversation); confirm the 12-week notice period.Each pro and con points back to something in the question fields. That is what lets a hiring manager who was not in the room trust it, and what lets you defend the rating in the debrief. If your team runs debriefs, submit before you read anyone else's scorecard; why that matters is covered in independent interview feedback before the debrief.
What if a notetaker or AI drafted your notes?
The scorecard is still yours. Three cases:
- Greenhouse Notetaker. Greenhouse's Notetaker article describes generated notes per question that you add with "Add to summary". It also shows a reminder if you submit generated notes without your own assessment in Key Take-Aways. Treat that reminder as the rule: the generated notes fill the question fields, and the ratings and take-aways are written by you.
- A separate notetaker or AI tool. Paste the relevant evidence into each question field, not the whole summary into Key Take-Aways. A summary written for "the meeting" rarely maps onto your kit's questions; our piece on why meeting summaries don't work as interview scorecards explains the gap.
- A tool that already scored the candidate. Do not convert its numbers mechanically. A 7 out of 10 from another tool is not a Greenhouse "Yes" by arithmetic; reread the evidence and rate on Greenhouse's scale, using your team's anchors.
Whatever the source, check every quote before it goes in. A quote the candidate never said, sitting in a scorecard that drives a hiring decision, is worse than no quote.
What about screens that were not scheduled in Greenhouse?
A scorecard is assigned to an interviewer automatically when the interview is scheduled. For a recruiter screen booked outside Greenhouse, a last-minute call or a group interview where everyone needs their own scorecard, the scorecard overview says you can assign a scorecard manually, which puts the input on record without scheduling an interview. Ask the recruiter to do this rather than pasting your feedback into a candidate note, where it will not appear with the other scorecards.
Agency recruiters working into a client's Greenhouse do not fill scorecards at all. They submit candidates through the agency portal, and Greenhouse's article on adding a note to an agency candidate submission says the agency recruiter clicks Add a note on the candidate, which the hiring team can see; ticking Private Note limits it to Job Admins and Site Admins with access to the candidate's personal details. Put the submittal summary there, and pay or notice details in a private note.
Can you change a scorecard after you submit it?
Usually. The interviewer guide says to select See Past Interviews on My Dashboard, choose See Scorecard, click Edit, change what you need and click Update Scorecard, and only for jobs that are still open. The scorecard overview adds that, depending on your organization's settings, Job Admins can edit scorecards for up to 30 days after submission and Site Admins at any time. Whether other interviewers' scorecards are visible to you is also a setting: interviewers may see them never, always, or only after everyone on that interview has submitted. It is set under Configure, Permission Policies, and Greenhouse's FAQ notes that seeing each other's scorecards may introduce bias and points to the "Never" option to prevent it.
Edits are for corrections, not for bringing your rating into line after the debrief. If the debrief changed your mind, say so in the decision record rather than rewriting the evidence you submitted. A good habit that makes edits rare: block 15 minutes straight after each interview to write the scorecard while the answers are fresh. If interviewers on your team routinely miss that window, see how to get interviewers to submit scorecards.
Questions people ask
What are the rating options on a Greenhouse scorecard?
Attributes are rated on a five-point scale: Definitely Not, No, Mixed or Neutral, Yes and Strong Yes. The Overall Recommendation has four options, Definitely Not, No, Yes and Strong Yes, and a scorecard submitted without one is recorded as No Decision. That is how Greenhouse's Scorecards FAQ describes it as of October 2026.
Can I edit a Greenhouse scorecard after I submit it?
Usually, if your organization allows it. Greenhouse's interviewer guide says you open See Past Interviews on My Dashboard, choose See Scorecard, click Edit and then Update Scorecard, and only on jobs that are still open. Depending on settings, Job Admins can edit scorecards for up to 30 days after submission and Site Admins at any time.
Who can see the private notes on my Greenhouse scorecard?
Private notes on a scorecard are visible only to Job Admins and Site Admins who have permission to see private information about the candidate, according to Greenhouse's support articles as of October 2026. A Note for Other Interviewers is the opposite: it is public and appears in the next interviewers' Interview Prep tab and in the candidate's activity feed.
How should I use AI interview notes to fill a Greenhouse scorecard?
Use the notes as evidence, not as the rating. Paste or summarize what the candidate said into the question fields, rate each focus attribute yourself from that evidence, and write Key Take-Aways in your own words. If you use Greenhouse Notetaker, Greenhouse shows a reminder when generated notes are added without your own assessment in Key Take-Aways.