Should interviewers see each other's feedback? Independent scorecards before the debrief

No, not until they have submitted their own. Each interviewer should write their scores and the candidate's words behind them, submit, and only then read anyone else's feedback. A panel is valuable because it collects several separate readings of a candidate; once one interviewer has seen another's verdict, the two are no longer separate. Greenhouse's analysis of scorecards from over 10 million panel interviews found that interviewers who looked at a colleague's scorecard first were 3.6% more likely to give exactly the same rating (Greenhouse, February 24, 2026).

This page explains why, what counts as "peeking" in practice, and how to switch it off in your applicant tracking system (ATS). What happens once every scorecard is in is covered in the interview debrief template and what is a hiring debrief.

What are the options for feedback visibility?

What does the research say about seeing others' opinions first?

The evidence comes from three directions, and it lines up.

• Hiring data. In Greenhouse's analysis (article by Bobby Cardos, February 24, 2026), panel interviewers who peeked were 3.6% more likely to give the exact same rating as their co-interviewer than interviewers who submitted independently. Greenhouse calls this a narrow measure that probably underestimates the effect, because it only counts ratings that became identical, not ratings that merely moved closer. The same article reports that 85% of its customers use a setting that prevents peeking.
• Social influence experiments. In a study of 144 participants, Lorenz, Rauhut, Schweitzer and Helbing (2011, PNAS) found that even mild information about other people's estimates narrowed the spread of answers without making the group more accurate, and made people more confident anyway. For a panel, that means agreement that feels like confirmation but adds no new evidence.
• Group discussion research. Stasser and Titus (1985) showed that group discussion tends to be dominated by information members already share and information that supports their existing preferences. In a debrief, the detail only one interviewer heard is the most likely to be lost, which is why it needs to be on paper before the talking starts.

Selection research builds this into the procedure. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management's structured interview guide (2008) tells panel members to rate independently, without discussion, and only then compare notes and resolve differences. The review of interview structure by Campion, Palmer and Campion (1997) lists no discussion between interviews among its fifteen components of structure.

One nuance matters: discussion itself is not the problem. In a study of 62 interviewers, Pulakos, Schmitt, Whitney and Smith (1996) compared consensus ratings reached after discussion with ratings averaged across interviewers and found the consensus ratings had "significantly but probably not practically higher validities." Talking is fine. Talking before everyone has committed their own evidence is what costs you.

What counts as peeking?

Opening a colleague's scorecard in the ATS is the obvious case. Most influence travels by other routes:

The handoff row is worth a closer look. Passing on what is still untested helps the next interviewer ask better questions; passing on a verdict tells them what to find. The interview handoff notes between rounds page has a format that keeps the two apart.

How do you set it up in your ATS?

Settings as described in each vendor's own help pages, as of October 2026:

• Greenhouse. Scorecard visibility has three options: Never, Always, and Only after submitting their own. It is set at the organization level under Permission Policies for interviewers and separately for job admin levels (Greenhouse support). Greenhouse says new accounts start on "Only after submitting their own."
• Ashby. A Feedback Visibility setting lets admins make feedback visible before a user has submitted their own, never visible, or visible only after they submit, with separate settings for different access levels (Ashby docs).
• Other systems. Look for "feedback visibility", "scorecard permissions" or "hide feedback until submitted" in the admin settings, and check whether it covers hiring managers and admins as well as interviewers.

Without an ATS, collect scorecards through a form that each interviewer fills in separately, and have the recruiter or panel lead build the score grid only after every form is in. Shared documents that everyone edits are the worst option: the first entry becomes everyone's anchor. The structured interview without an ATS page covers the rest of that setup.

What if an interviewer is late with their scorecard?

• Set the deadline before the debrief, not at it: a few hours before is common. A scorecard written in the meeting is written after hearing the others.
• Move the debrief when a scorecard on a gate competency is missing. Deciding without it, then hearing it later, is worse than a one-day delay.
• Mark late scorecards. A scorecard submitted after the debrief is kept for the record but labelled as not independent.
• Make it easy to submit on time: block 15 minutes after each interview in the interviewer's calendar. Google's re:Work guidance says its internal research found feedback submitted within 48 hours is significantly higher in quality than later submissions (Google re:Work).

A copy-ready nudge is in the hiring manager feedback reminder email.

What should happen once every scorecard is in?

1. The facilitator builds one grid of scores by competency and interviewer, and flags spreads of two points or more.
2. All scores are revealed at once, not read out one by one.
3. Discussion starts with the competencies where interviewers disagree, and each person reads their evidence before their conclusion.
4. The most senior person, usually the hiring manager, speaks last.
5. A score changes only when someone names evidence the interviewer did not have; the original stays on file.
6. The decision owner applies the rule agreed before the loop; see the hire or no-hire decision framework.

Independent scores also give you the raw material to check whether your interviewers agree at all over time, which is what inter-rater reliability measures. That number is meaningless if the scores were not independent in the first place.

How should an agency recruiter collect feedback from a client's interviewers?

The same rule applies, but the agency recruiter is often the only channel, which makes it easy to carry one interviewer's view to the next. A few habits keep each client interviewer's feedback their own:

• Ask each interviewer separately, by phone or a short form, before you speak to the hiring manager.
• Ask open questions first: "What did you hear on the client-handling question?" before "The others thought it went well, did you?"
• Do not relay verdicts between interviewers, even to be helpful. "The VP liked her" is the strongest anchor you can give a junior panelist.
• Write down who said what, with their words, before you summarize. A blended summary hides a split that the hiring manager needs to see.

When you then brief the candidate, the candidate debrief after a client interview page covers what to share and what to hold back.

Does this apply to panel interviews where everyone is in the room?

Yes, and it is harder. Everyone heard the same answers, so there is a pull to "just agree" on the way out. Ask panelists to score in silence before anyone speaks, even if that means five quiet minutes at the end of the slot. On video panels, keep the private chat for logistics only. The panel interview tips for interviewers page covers how to split questions so each panelist owns different evidence.