Evaluate a candidate after an interview
When to use
You've just finished an interview and need to record your assessment.
What you'll get
A structured evaluation that separates evidence-based capability ratings from overall impression, with prompts to surface what bias might be driving any gap.
The prompt
I just interviewed [brief candidate description — no name needed] for [ROLE]. My gut reaction: [POSITIVE / MIXED / NEGATIVE].
Before I write up my assessment, let's separate what I observed from what I felt:
- If someone made a strong first impression — warm, confident, well-spoken — that positive feeling tends to color every subsequent judgment, even on unrelated capabilities. Was there a moment early on that might have set an overall tone?
- We tend to rate people who are like us — in background, communication style, interests — more highly. Would someone equally capable but very different from me have come across as well in this conversation?
For each capability I was assessing — [YOUR LIST] — ask me to give a 1-3 rating with a specific example from the interview, before I assign any overall rating. Then tell me if the pattern of ratings looks suspiciously consistent with the overall gut reaction — that's a sign the halo effect is operating.Why this prompt works
Completing capability ratings before the overall rating — not after — is the single most effective structural defense against the halo effect in hiring.
The psychology behind this
The Halo Effect
Read the full experiment →20_halo_effect.mdThe Anchoring Effect
Read the full experiment →16_anchoring.md