What happens to interview recordings when a recruiter leaves? An offboarding guide for AI note takers
On this page
- Why does it matter who ends up with the recordings?
- Is the account personal or company-managed?
- What does each tool do when you remove a user?
- The offboarding checklist
- How do you stop this being a problem next time?
- What about tools that keep everything on the recruiter's computer?
- Questions people ask
What happens to a departing recruiter's interview recordings depends on whether they sit in a company-managed workspace or the recruiter's personal account, and on which button the admin presses. As of October 2026, Otter keeps the data in the workspace if you deactivate the user but lets them take it with them if you "remove" them; Fireflies offers "keep data" or "delete data"; Zoom transfers cloud recordings only if you pick a recipient at deletion; and Teams and Google Meet recordings live in the leaver's own OneDrive or Drive and are deleted after a set period unless moved. Decide before the last day: candidate recordings are company records under your retention policy.
Why does it matter who ends up with the recordings?
- They are hiring records. US employers must keep employment records, including those having to do with hiring, for one year, and longer if a discrimination charge is filed (29 CFR 1602.14). The full schedule is in how long to keep interview notes.
- Candidates can ask for them. If the recordings sit in an account nobody can open, you cannot answer an access or deletion request.
- They are the agency's candidate data. A recruiter who walks out with them takes the evidence of who introduced whom, which is the heart of candidate ownership disputes, and contacts that non-solicitation clauses try to protect.
- In the UK it can be an offence. Section 170 of the Data Protection Act 2018 makes it an offence knowingly or recklessly to retain personal data without the consent of the controller it was obtained from (DPA 2018, s.170).
Is the account personal or company-managed?
Check this first, for every recruiter, ideally long before anyone resigns.
| Sign | Company-managed | Personal |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays | Company invoice, seat in a team or business plan | Recruiter's own card, or a free plan |
| Sign-in | Company email, often single sign-on | Personal email, or a work email outside the team workspace |
| Admin console | The recruiter appears in your member list | You cannot see the account at all |
| What you can do at exit | Deactivate, transfer, export, delete under your policy | Ask the person to export and delete, and rely on their word |
If any recruiter records candidates on a personal account, fix that now: move them to a company seat, ask them to move their existing recordings across, and confirm the personal copies are deleted.
What does each tool do when you remove a user?
From each vendor's own help pages, as of October 2026. Menu names change; check the linked page before acting.
| Tool | Admin options | What happens to the recordings | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Otter | Deactivate (recommended by Otter), Remove, or Delete | Deactivate blocks sign-in and preserves all recordings and conversations in the workspace. Remove converts the user to an individual Otter account, and they retain the recordings and conversations they created. Delete permanently removes the account and all its data. On Enterprise, admins can manage active and deactivated users' conversations, but removed or deleted users' conversations are no longer discoverable by admins. | Manage workspace members; Recording management |
| Fireflies | Deactivate and keep data, or Deactivate and delete data; Remove for users outside your domain | Keep data: meetings and notes stay searchable. Delete data: meeting data is permanently deleted after 30 days. The article does not describe transferring meetings to another user. | Fireflies guide |
| Fathom | No transfer between accounts | Fathom does not support transferring or merging recordings between accounts. On a team plan, a deactivated employee's recordings can be added to the team library, or the account's email changed to an incoming team member. Fathom also offers an email change so a user can keep access under a different, including personal, email. | Fathom help |
| Granola | Remove from workspace; data export permissions | Removal ends the person's access to the workspace and their notes in it; notes are not deleted, and notes in shared workspace folders stay visible. Admins control whether users can export data, transfer notes to another account or move them to another workspace. | Granola workspaces |
| Metaview | Remove member | Conversations for removed users continue to be available to admins and other users with access; the user moves to an Archived section. Deleting their data takes a request to Metaview's privacy team. | Metaview team management |
| Zoom | Delete user, with transfer | Meetings, webinars, cloud recordings and clips can be transferred to another licensed user during deletion; anything not transferred is permanently deleted. Meetings scheduled with a Personal Meeting ID cannot be transferred. | Zoom support |
| Microsoft Teams | Delete the user; OneDrive access delegation | Meeting recordings save to the organizer's OneDrive. When the user is deleted, the manager (or a secondary owner) gets access by default and is told the OneDrive will be deleted at the end of the retention period, 30 days by default and configurable, with a reminder seven days before. Retention policies and holds take precedence. | Teams recording storage; OneDrive retention |
| Google Meet | Transfer Drive data, or suspend | Recordings save to the organizer's Drive. Super admins can transfer Drive files during deletion; other admins must transfer first. Data not transferred is deleted; a deleted user can be restored for up to 20 days. Google suggests suspending or archiving instead if you need to keep data. | Google Workspace admin help |
The pattern: the option that sounds gentlest ("remove") can be the one that hands the recordings to the departing person, and the option that sounds final ("delete") can destroy records you are obliged to keep. Deactivate or transfer first; delete later, on schedule.
The offboarding checklist
When notice is given
- List every tool the recruiter records or transcribes in: note taker, meeting platform, phone system, ATS. Include anything on a personal plan.
- Check for legal holds or open disputes touching their candidates. Held records must not be deleted.
- Make sure open candidates' notes and submittals are in the ATS, not only in the note taker.
- Restrict new sharing: if the tool lets admins block exports or transfers to other accounts, switch that on for the leaver now.
On the last day
- Deactivate the account, or transfer its recordings to a named owner (often the team lead), using the options in the table. Do not use an option that converts the account to a personal one.
- For Teams and Meet, assign the OneDrive or Drive to the manager and move interview recordings to a company location before the deletion date.
- Revoke sign-in, single sign-on and any connected integrations, such as calendar access that lets a bot keep joining meetings.
- Ask the recruiter to confirm in writing that they hold no candidate recordings, transcripts or exports on personal devices or accounts.
Afterwards
- Record who now owns the recordings and where they are, so access requests can be answered.
- Delete on your retention schedule, not before, and log the deletion.
- Release the seat only after the data question is closed; in some tools releasing the seat is part of the delete or remove step.
How do you stop this being a problem next time?
- Company accounts only. No candidate interviews on personal plans or personal emails. Put it in the desk guide described in how to roll out an AI note taker.
- Decide leaver handling at rollout. Who reassigns or deletes a departing recruiter's recordings, and which button they press.
- Set retention in the tool. Recordings that delete themselves on schedule leave less to fight over; AI note taker auto-delete settings compares what each tool allows.
- Keep the record of decision in the ATS. The scorecard and submittal should not depend on any one person's note-taker account.
- Limit who can see what in the meantime. Role-based access is covered in who should have access to interview recordings.
What about tools that keep everything on the recruiter's computer?
Local-first tools move the question from an admin console to a laptop. We make Interview Signal, which keeps transcripts, quotes, candidate names, notes and submittals on the recruiter's own computer rather than on a server. For a leaver, that means collecting or wiping the device under your normal IT process, and making sure the scorecards and submittals you need were copied into the ATS before they go, since Interview Signal has no ATS integration. Where interview data lives for each kind of tool is mapped in where AI note takers store interview data.
Not legal advice. Retention periods and offences depend on where you and your candidates are; confirm your schedule with whoever owns compliance.
Questions people ask
Can a recruiter keep their AI note taker recordings after leaving the agency?
They should not, because candidate interviews are the agency's records, but some tools make it possible. Otter's help center says removing a member from a workspace converts them to an individual account that keeps the recordings and conversations, while deactivating keeps the data in the workspace. Use the option that keeps the data with the company, and make the rule clear in the employment terms.
What happens to Teams interview recordings when the organizer leaves?
Teams meeting recordings save to the organizer's OneDrive. Microsoft's documentation says that when the user is deleted, their manager gets access by default and the OneDrive is deleted at the end of the retention period, 30 days by default, unless retention policies or holds say otherwise. Move the recordings you must keep before that date.
How do I keep a departing recruiter's Zoom cloud recordings?
Transfer them when you delete the user. Zoom's support article says admins can transfer meetings, webinars, cloud recordings and clips to another licensed user during deletion, and anything not transferred is permanently deleted.
Should we delete a departed recruiter's interview recordings?
Only on your retention schedule. Interview records often have a minimum retention period, for example one year under the EEOC's recordkeeping rule for US employers, and must be kept longer under a legal hold. Move them to a company-controlled place, then delete them when the schedule says so, not on the recruiter's last day.