Interview Signal for startups: structured interviews before you have a recruiter

Founders and first hiring managers use Interview Signal to run structured interviews before there is a recruiter or an ATS. You paste your own job description, get a kit of questions with "What a strong answer contains" under each and a weighted scorecard, and interview beside Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet with no bot joining, while the app ticks questions off and fills the scorecard with the candidate's own words. As of October 2026 one founder fits Free (20 minutes), Pay as you go hours or Solo ($49 a month); three or more interviewers who want shared roles and panels fit Team ($59 per seat per month, minimum three seats). There is no ATS integration and no scheduling. This describes version 0.9.10.

How does a founder set up the first hire?

1. Press "New role", give it a "Role title" and paste your job description, or its link under "Paste the posting link" with "Fetch".
2. Write what you actually need in "What the client actually wants". The label assumes an agency, but for you it is the place for what the job description does not say, for example "has shipped to paying customers without a QA team" (an example). It outranks the job description and decides which capability questions become must-asks.
3. Save one role per interview stage. A role has one kit, so a loop with a screen, a technical round and an ownership round is three roles, for example "Backend engineer: screen" with "Balanced", "Backend engineer: technical" with "Technical", "Coding" or "System design", and "Backend engineer: ownership" with "Behavioural" (examples). The trade-off: the home screen and Compare group candidates by role, so you compare them stage by stage.
4. Set the level. "Difficulty: Mixed" is "Rising through the interview, so a weak candidate shows early."
5. Edit before saving. Reword questions, tick "Must ask" on the few that decide it, rename scorecard areas, set each "Weight" from 1 to 3, and edit the consent notice. Then "Save role". See the kit from a job description.

The kit generator is written for an interviewer who is not a specialist in the role, which is often a founder hiring their first salesperson, accountant or engineer outside their own field. For loop design, see the interview guide for startup roles, and for when the interviewing should pass to someone else, when a startup should hire its first recruiter.

What helps when I interview outside my own field?

Sales hires have their own page: Interview Signal for sales hiring.

How do co-founders share a decision without an ATS?

• "Copy for Slack" gives one short paragraph for your team channel: the recommendation and fit, two strengths, two things to watch, and availability.
• "Copy next round" tells the next interviewer what is still open: questions not asked, areas answered without evidence, and areas never reached.
• "Compare" puts two to six scored candidates for a role side by side; "Copy as text" gives a scores-only table. See Compare.
• "Save .md" and "Export .docx" put the write-up in a shared folder, and "Add CSV row" appends each candidate to one submittals.csv file, a simple tracker; structured interviews without an ATS shows how to run the rest around it.
• If you already use Greenhouse or Lever, "Copy ATS note…" has a note shaped for each, to paste by hand.

Each interviewer's transcripts and scorecards stay on their own computer, so a co-founder sees only what you send, which also keeps first impressions independent until the debrief; see independent feedback before the debrief. The write-up is phrased for a decision-maker who was not in the room, and its default headings come from agency submittals; on Solo you are the account's admin and can copy a template in the web account and rename its headings. See submittal templates.

What stays private?

Transcripts, quotes, candidate names, notes and write-ups are stored on the interviewer's computer and never uploaded to Interview Signal. Audio goes to a speech-to-text provider in short chunks and is not retained; an attached CV is sent to the AI model during the interview, and the candidate's name and company are sent to it when it writes the submittal. Saved roles and templates are stored on the account. See the security page.

What does Interview Signal not do for a startup?

• No ATS, job posting, scheduling, sourcing or offer letters. It covers the interview and the write-up.
• No shared roles or panels below Team, and Team needs at least three seats.
• In person, the scorecard needs you. At the office, both voices reach one microphone: areas come back "Probe further", scores above 5 are capped, and follow-ups and "Score as we go" do not start on their own; press "Evaluate", add scores with "+", and use the refresh arrow for follow-ups. See in-person interviews.
• Desktop only, on Windows 10 or 11 or macOS 13 or newer; phone interviews must run through the computer; no video.
• Not legal advice. The app gives you a consent line to read; recording rules depend on where you and the candidate are.
• A newer product with few public reviews.

Which plan fits a startup?

As an example, the three-seat minimum on Team comes to $177 a month, or $1,764 a year on the annual plan. Moving from Free, Pay as you go or Solo to Team happens in your account, and your roles and interviews come with you. See pricing, watch the walkthrough on the Try it page, then download the app.