Structured

Hiring 101
Worksheets
These worksheets will help you carry out the Structured Hiring

approach, including guiding your kick-off meeting with the

hiring manager, defining your scorecard and interview plan, and

identifying the questions and types of answers you’re looking for in

the interview stage.

STRUCTURED HIRING WORKSHEETS

Introduction

In an ideal world, recruiters, hiring managers, and everyone else

involved in the hiring process would be perfectly aligned. After all,

everyone has the same goal: to get great candidates to accept offers

and begin working at their company.

At Greenhouse, we believe that Structured Hiring can help make that

ideal world a reality. Following this process facilitates recruiter/hiring

manager alignment, improves candidate experience, and ultimately

leads to making better hires. Structured Hiring follows three core

tenets: the ideal candidate is defined by the business objectives

of the job, a deliberate process and rubric is used to assess all

candidates, and hiring decisions are based on data and evidence.

Using these worksheets will put you one step closer to a structured

and successful hiring process!

3 Kick-Off Meeting

7 Designing a Scorecard and Interview Structure

9 Developing Effective Interview Questions

STRUCTURED HIRING WORKSHEETS

Kick-Off Meeting
The kick-off meeting is your opportunity to learn everything you need to know to 1) understand the profile of
candidates you’ll be looking for, and 2) design an effective interview process. In addition to defining the basics of
the role (what is this title? who does it report to?), use this time to partner with your hiring manager to help them
think about the role strategically and start to shape the experience of the eventual new hire.

Use this worksheet to guide your next kick-off meeting.

J O B S E A R C H D E TA I LS S U M M A R Y

Role

Team

P R E K I C K- O F F M E E T I N G H O M E W O R K

Explain the business need for opening this search.

Why do we need a / another [insert role title here]?

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Determine high-level objectives for the role.

What goals need to be achieved a year from now for you to determine the hire is successful?

How will this role enable the team to meet its goals?

How will success be measured (i.e., how will we know the above goals have been achieved?)

What will a superstar accomplish in a year?

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Set the first 90-day goals for this person.

For a superstar to accomplish what you said above in a year, what does he/she need to do in the first 90 days?

What do they own?

What have they learned/mastered?

What have they accomplished?

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Define the person who can achieve these goals.

What are the non-negotiable skills/experience they need to have?

What’s coachable or nice-to-have?

What are the personality traits that enable someone to be successful in this role?

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Designing a REMEMBER, SCORECARD

Scorecard and AT T R I B U T E S S H O U L D :

•
Interview Structure
Be mutually exclusive, collectively
exhaustive. Make sure the attributes
you pick don’t overlap with each other

The scorecard is a list of the skills, traits, and but come together to create a pretty

qualifications someone will need to have in order to be complete picture of the person you’re

successful in the upcoming role. These attributes are trying to hire.

what the interview process will be designed to test and

verify for each candidate. • Stick to the “need to haves.” If you’re
including a “nice to have,” make sure
Use the template below to create the scorecard. The to label it as such to keep things
Kick-Off Meeting worksheet you already filled out will clear for interviewers when it comes
help you do that. time to make a hiring decision.

Skills
For example, “strong
written communication”
for an Executive Assistant,
“objection handling” for
an Account Executive,
or “Ruby on Rails” for an
Engineer.

Traits
For example, “adaptable,”
“collaborative,” “prioritizes
team success over
individual success.”

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Qualifications
For example, “CPA,”
“previous management
experience,” or “experience
with an ATS”

Culture Fit (Traits)

*optional
For example,
“collaborative,” “inclusive
& open-minded,” or
“authentic”

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Interview Design
Now that you know everything you want to understand about the candidates, the next step is to design an interview
process that facilitates that discovery.

We’ve created the skeleton of a typical interview pipeline.

With your hiring manager, start by assigning attributes to each interview to help give the interview a loose purpose.
Then, think about who might be great at testing that purpose.

Choose attributes from the scorecard Who in your organization is

Sample Interview Plan above. The attributes you choose give the best person to test for
the interview its purpose. these scorecard attributes?

INTERVIEWS NOTES AT T R I B U T E S INTERVIEWER

First Phone This is an opportunity to screen for the basic requirements of the
Screen job. Choose attributes that are the least technical, or the easiest

for someone who isn’t in the actual role to test for. This is a great

time to ask about attributes in the ‘qualifications’ section.

Second Phone This may be a phone conversation with a hiring manager. This
Interview interview can dig a bit more in depth into the role. Choose attributes

that are relatively easy to screen for over the phone, and would be

a non-starter if a candidate didn’t possess them. This will help you

‘fail faster’ and make sure you don’t waste time in later stages.

Take-home Skills This is a chance to “do the job.” Pick the critical “hard” skills from
Assessment the scorecard, and develop an exercise that allows candidates to

demonstrate their abilities.

Onsite Interview: Group attributes logically —focus on skills here.

Skills Some attributes will already have been tested and you’ll be looking

for a second opinion—that’s okay!

Onsite Interview: Group attributes logically—focus on traits here.

Traits (Role) Some attributes will already have been tested and you’ll be looking

for a second opinion —that’s okay!

Onsite Interview: Group attributes logically—focus on culture traits here.

Traits (Org Some attributes will already have been tested and you’ll be looking
Culture) for a second opinion—that’s okay!

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Developing Effective Interview Questions

Use the interview structure that you worked on with your hiring manager to come up with some questions.

1. Pick some attributes you’d like to interview for.

2. Decide which type of question is best suited for the attribute. As a reminder, the types of attributes are:

a. Skills – the hard, technical requirements for the role

b. Traits – “soft skills” or personal abilities

c. Qualifications – easily verifiable experiences or accomplishments

3. Design a question to test the attribute.

You can come up with some answer guides on your own, but for others you may want to collaborate with your
hiring manager.

Attribute Type: Skill

AT T R I B U T E : Question 1

Answer Guide

AT T R I B U T E : Question 2

Answer Guide

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Attribute Type: Trait

AT T R I B U T E : Question 1

Answer Guide

AT T R I B U T E : Question 2

Answer Guide

Attribute Type: Culture Fit (Trait)

AT T R I B U T E : Question 1

Answer Guide

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AT T R I B U T E : Question 2

Answer Guide

Attribute Type: Qualification

AT T R I B U T E : Question

Answer Guide

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