What is an interview guide? Definition, parts and what tools call it

An interview guide is the document an interviewer works from during an interview. It names the competencies this interview assesses and gives the questions in order, the planned follow-up probes, what a good answer looks like on a rating scale, the timing and space for notes. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) says an interviewer's guide should cover general instructions and common rating mistakes, plus each competency's definition and proficiency levels, the questions, a rating scale with examples, and example probes. ATS and interview tools often call the same document an interview kit, an interview plan or an interview script.

This page explains what an interview guide is, the two ways the term is used, what different tools call it, and why it matters. If you want to write one now, the interview guide template has a copy-ready version and a filled example.

What is in an interview guide?

OPM's Structured Interviews: A Practical Guide lists the contents. Each part exists to prevent a specific failure:

The scores themselves usually go on a separate document, the interview scorecard, filled in straight after the interview. A good guide points to the scorecard's competencies so notes drop straight into it.

What does one section of an interview guide look like?

An invented example: one competency block from a hiring manager's guide for a support team lead.

C2  Handling escalations (12 min)
    Definition: takes ownership of an upset customer's problem and
    resolves it without giving away more than the policy allows.

    Q: "Tell me about the last escalation that reached you
       personally. What was the problem, and what did you do?"
    Probes: What had already been tried? What did you say first?
            What did you decide on your own, and what did you
            check with someone? How did it end?

    1  Passed it on, or resolved it by breaking policy.
    2  Resolved it, but cannot say what they did differently
       from the first agent.
    3  Clear ownership, explained the decision to the customer,
       stayed within policy.
    4  As 3, and changed something afterwards so the same
       escalation did not recur.

    Notes: ____________________     [ ] Not assessed

The definition, the probes and the four anchors are what turn a question into a guide. Without them, two interviewers could hear the same story and score it 2 and 4.

What are the two meanings of "interview guide"?

People use the term at two levels, and it helps to know which one someone means:

• One interview. The sheet a single interviewer uses for a single conversation, such as the hiring manager's 45-minute interview. This is the meaning OPM uses and the one this page defines.
• One role. A plan for the whole hiring loop: the stages, who owns which competency at each stage, the core questions, any exercise, weights and the decision rule. Our interview guide for software engineers is this kind. A role-level guide contains several interview-level guides.

Two other uses are unrelated and cause confusion in searches:

• A candidate prep guide, the document some employers send applicants explaining the format, who they will meet and how to prepare.
• A research interview guide, the topic list a researcher uses in a qualitative interview, which is usually looser and is not scored.

What do ATS and interview tools call an interview guide?

As described in each vendor's own documentation, as of October 2026:

Whatever the label, check for the parts in the first table. A "kit" that holds questions but no probes or rating scale is a question list, not a guide.

Is an interview guide the same as an interview script?

They sit at different points on a scale of how much is fixed in advance:

A guide is what makes an interview a structured interview without making it robotic. The interviewer still sounds like a person; what does not change from candidate to candidate is what gets asked and how it is judged.

Why does an interview guide matter?

• Comparable candidates. If everyone answers the same questions against the same scale, the debrief compares evidence instead of impressions.
• Interviewer training. OPM's guide says interviewers should receive a guide describing the interview process in detail before or during their training. For an occasional interviewer, the guide is the training.
• A record of what was asked. OPM lists "interview guides, rating scales, and other materials used" among the information to record and retain for a structured interview. Separately, the EEOC's recordkeeping rule requires employers to preserve any personnel or employment record, including records having to do with hiring, for one year from the date the record was made or the personnel action taken, whichever is later (29 CFR 1602.14, as of October 2026). Ask your counsel how that applies to your guides and notes; our page on how long to keep interview notes covers the practical side. This is not legal advice.
• Less to remember mid-call. With the questions and probes written down, the interviewer's attention goes to the answer.

Who writes the interview guide, and when?

1. After the intake meeting, once the hiring manager has confirmed which requirements matter on day one.
2. The recruiter or hiring manager drafts it from the job description, one guide per interview stage, so the screen, the hiring manager interview and the panel do not repeat each other.
3. The hiring manager signs off on the competencies and what a strong answer looks like. Disagreement here is cheaper than disagreement in the debrief.
4. It is finished before the first candidate and stays fixed for the search. Fix a question that clearly does not work, note the date, and do not keep editing; candidates interviewed on different versions are hard to compare.
5. Good questions are kept for next time in a shared question bank.

How do you tell a good interview guide from a weak one?

• The substitute test. Could a colleague who has never met the hiring manager run this interview tomorrow and score it the same way?
• The clock test. Does the timing add up, with room to probe? Two or three competencies fit in 45 minutes; six do not.
• The anchor test. For each question, is there a written description of a strong answer that two interviewers would apply the same way?
• The job test. Can every question be traced to a requirement in the job description? If not, cut it.
• The off-limits test. Nothing that asks about, or invites, age, family, health, religion or national origin.

Can AI write an interview guide?

AI can draft one quickly, and several tools now do it from a job title or description; our comparison of AI interview question generators covers what each produces. Treat the result as a first draft: check every question against the tests above, and add probes and anchors where the tool gave you only questions. Interview Signal, which we make, builds the guide from the job description and keeps the must-ask questions pinned on screen during the call until they have been asked, which addresses the other common failure: a good guide that gets forgotten once the conversation flows.