Interview Scorecard
The Eight-Minute Interview.
Score eleven signals. Three override the rest. Five or fewer means leave.
| # | Signal | Green if… | ✓ | ✗ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Greeter on time | Within 5 minutes of scheduled start. | |||
| 2 | Setup ready | Conference room booked, screen working, materials prepared. | |||
| 3 | Assessment runnable | Team can run its own exercise without troubleshooting their environment. | |||
| 4 | Reviewers engaged | Questions asked, comments offered, follow-ups taken. | |||
| 5 | Work product reviewed | Team accepts a code sample, paper, or architecture doc when offered. | |||
| 6 | Leader present | Most senior person spent at least 30 minutes prepared and on topic. | |||
| 7 | Leader engaged | Questions about your work, your decisions, your patterns. Not your bag. | |||
| 8 | Disagreement handled | A calm technical observation gets a calm technical answer. | |||
| 9 | Clean exit | You leave on the agreed time, not the leader's mood. | |||
| 10 | Belongings handled with care | If you forget anything, the team brings it to you, not the counter. | |||
| 11 | Recruiter follow-up | Substantive note within 24 hours. Calibration, not deflection. |
Override. Any one of signals 7, 8, or 10 marked red ends the evaluation. Withdraw, regardless of the total.
9 to 11Proceed with conviction.
6 to 8Negotiate harder before next steps.
5 or lessWithdraw cleanly within 48 hours.
After-action notes
What did the leader spend the most time on?
What questions did they not ask?
What is the one sentence you would write in the email tonight?