The discussion afterwards is where structured interviewing usually falls apart. Four people gather, the most senior one speaks first, and thirty minutes of careful independent scoring disappears.
Scores get locked before the meeting
Every interviewer submits their scores and evidence before the discussion, and before seeing anyone else's. This is the single most valuable rule in the module and it is not negotiable.
The reason is simple. Once a confident opinion is in the room, everyone else's judgement moves towards it — and the people moving cannot feel it happening. Score afterwards and you get a record of one person's view held by four people.
Enforce it mechanically. Scores locked before the meeting opens. Not "please try not to discuss it beforehand", which nobody manages.
How to run the meeting
- Go skill by skill, not person by person. This keeps the conversation on evidence rather than overall impressions.
- Start where people disagree. Where scores match, move on. Spend the time where two interviewers saw the same person differently. That is where the information is.
- Evidence before opinion. "What did they say?" comes before "what did you think?" Anyone who cannot point at something has an impression — and impressions are exactly what this process exists to filter out.
- The most junior person speaks first on each skill.
- Judge against the job, not the other candidates. The question is whether this person meets the bar, not whether they were the best of a weak week.
Things to say when a discussion drifts
These are exact phrasings rather than principles, because principles do not survive a meeting running ten minutes late.
- "What is the evidence for that?" — works for almost anything.
- "Is that about the job, or about the interview?" — catches nervousness and polish being scored as ability.
- "Would we say that about someone from a different background?" — for "communication style", "presence", "professionalism".
- "Which skill is that?" — for objections that match nothing on the scorecard.
- "Are we comparing them to the bar, or to each other?"
"Culture fit" is a stop sign. It is almost never about values and almost always about familiarity. Ask which skill they mean. The objection either becomes something concrete or it disappears — and both are useful.
Write it down
Record the decision, the scores with their evidence, and what any real disagreement was about. If someone changed their score during the meeting, note what changed their mind.
Two reasons. It is the record you need if the decision is ever challenged. And a meeting where people know their reasoning will be written down is a meeting with noticeably better reasoning in it.
Download the debrief agenda · all templates
Who should run it
Not the hiring manager. They have the strongest opinion and the most authority, which is the worst combination for the person chairing. The recruiter runs the meeting, does not score, and decides who speaks when.