Interviews
In buildGive every interviewer the same brief
Four interviewers, four sets of questions, four opinions that cannot be compared, and a decision made by whoever spoke most confidently in the debrief.
An interview kit is the brief an interviewer receives before a stage: which competencies this stage assesses, the questions to ask, the follow-up probes, and the criteria to score against. Kits are in build for the Wave 1 release, with three default kits covering engineering, sales and operations roles.
By Surhires Editorial · Published · Reviewed
In the product: in build for Wave 1 with three default kits for engineering, sales and operations roles
Unstructured interviewing is the weakest part of most processes
A hiring process can have careful sourcing, a well-written brief and a scored assessment, and still make its final decision from four unstructured conversations. Each interviewer improvises, covers whatever interested them, and forms a view. In the debrief those four views are compared as though they were measurements of the same thing.
They are not. If one interviewer asked about system design and another asked about career motivation, the disagreement between them is not a signal about the candidate; it is a signal that two different interviews happened. The confident voice in the room wins, which is how a process that looks rigorous produces a decision that is not.
Interview kits address this at the only point where it can be addressed: before the interview, not during the debrief.
What a kit will contain
A kit is attached to a stage on a requisition, and each interviewer on that stage receives it. It will name the competencies that stage is responsible for assessing, give the questions to ask for each, supply follow-up probes for a thin answer, and define what a strong, adequate and weak response looks like against each criterion.
It will also name what the stage is not for. Explicitly telling a second-round interviewer not to re-cover the technical screen is the cheapest way to stop three interviewers asking the same four questions and nobody covering stakeholder management. Coverage is a design decision made once per requisition rather than four decisions made independently on the day.
- Competencies assigned per stage, so the panel covers the brief between them
- Questions and follow-up probes written for each competency
- Explicit scoring criteria describing a strong, adequate and weak answer
- Out-of-scope notes telling an interviewer what this stage is not for
- The candidate record, resume and prior stage feedback attached to the kit
Three default kits, then your own
The Wave 1 release will ship three default kits covering engineering, sales and operations roles. They exist so a firm can run a structured interview in week one rather than after a quarter of internal debate about competency frameworks. They are a starting point and they are meant to be edited.
They are not validated instruments and we will not describe them as such. They encode reasonable structure: ask about a competency, probe the answer, score against a stated criterion. The content that makes an interview genuinely predictive for your roles is yours to write, and the kit editor exists so that writing it once is enough.
Kits and scorecards are two halves of one thing
A kit is what an interviewer receives beforehand. A scorecard is what they submit afterwards. The criteria are the same object seen from two sides, which is why the two are built together: an interviewer who was told what to assess and then asked to score exactly that produces feedback the panel can actually combine.
The alternative, which most firms live with, is a free-text feedback box. Free-text feedback is not comparable, cannot be counted, and offers nothing if a hiring decision is ever questioned. Structured scoring against a stated criterion is what makes a panel comparable and a decision defensible.
Interviewers who are not recruiters
Most people conducting interviews do it a few times a year, have not been trained, and have three other things due that day. Designing for them means the kit has to be short, has to arrive with the calendar invitation rather than in a portal they will not log into, and has to be readable on a phone five minutes beforehand.
It also means the kit carries the context an occasional interviewer lacks: what the role is for, what the previous stage found, and what specifically this conversation is meant to establish. An interviewer who reads that is dramatically better prepared than one who opened the CV in the lift.
What this will not do
Interview kits will not conduct the interview, will not score it for you, and will not tell you whether an answer was good. They are a structure for a human conversation.
They are also in build. Nothing described here is available today, and this page is written in the future tense deliberately. Interview scheduling, feedback capture and the score dial ship now; the kit that tells an interviewer what to ask is Wave 1 work. If structured interviewing is the reason you are evaluating us, ask about the timeline rather than taking a feature list on trust.
What you get
Kits attached per stage
Each interview stage on a requisition carries its own kit rather than one brief for the whole process.
Competency allocation
Stages are assigned competencies so the panel covers the brief between them without overlapping.
Questions and probes
A written question per competency plus follow-up probes for when the first answer is thin.
Stated scoring criteria
What a strong, adequate and weak answer looks like, written down before anyone interviews.
Out-of-scope notes
Telling an interviewer what this stage is not for stops four people asking the same question.
Three default kits
Engineering, sales and operations kits ship with the Wave 1 release as an editable starting point.
Editable templates
Default kits are meant to be rewritten for your roles rather than adopted unchanged.
Context attached
Resume, requisition brief and previous stage feedback travel with the kit to the interviewer.
Delivered with the invite
The kit arrives alongside the calendar invitation, not in a portal an occasional interviewer ignores.
Phone readable
Designed to be usable five minutes before the interview on whatever device is to hand.
Paired with scorecards
The criteria in the kit are the criteria on the scorecard, so feedback answers the brief.
In build for Wave 1
Not available today; this capability is described in the future tense on purpose.
Questions recruiters ask
Can we use interview kits today?
No. Kits are in build for the Wave 1 release. Interview scheduling, feedback capture and the interview score dial ship today, so structured feedback is possible now, but the kit that briefs an interviewer beforehand is not. If that is central to your evaluation, ask us about the timeline rather than relying on this page.
Are the default kits validated?
No. The three default kits for engineering, sales and operations encode sensible structure, not research. We will not present them as validated instruments because they are not, and a firm that adopts them unchanged should treat them as scaffolding. The content that makes an interview predictive for your roles is content you write.
Will kits work for agency interviews as well as client interviews?
Yes. An agency screening call is a stage like any other and benefits most from structure, because it is the stage most often run from memory. A kit for the internal screen means two consultants on the same desk produce comparable notes, which matters when one of them is presenting the other's candidate.
Can a client interviewer receive a kit?
That is the intent, delivered alongside the interview invitation, and it is one of the more useful things an agency can give a hiring manager. It depends on the client portal work landing alongside it, so treat both as Wave 1 scope rather than as something you can rely on this quarter.
How many kits will a firm need?
Fewer than people expect. Most firms converge on one kit per discipline per stage type, so perhaps six to ten in total, not one per requisition. Kits that vary per role tend to stop being maintained, and an out-of-date kit is worse than none because interviewers stop trusting it.
Do kits replace interviewer training?
No. A kit gives an untrained interviewer a structure and a set of questions, which materially improves a bad interview. It does not teach anybody to probe an evasive answer, to avoid leading a candidate, or to notice when they have decided in the first two minutes. Those need training, and the kit is not a substitute for it.
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