![]() The secret to efficient note-taking: print, and take notes on, your interview guide Once you’ve read back through your notes and drawn your conclusions, you can toss your notes 2. Thus, you only need whatever notes are sufficient to recall the interview when it’s still relatively fresh in your mind. You you should be doing your data analysis pretty quickly after the interview – immediately after the interview, if possible, and within 24 hours at the most. Nor do your notes need to be captured for posterity. Figure out the absolute minimum you need to write to jog your memory a few hours later, and skip writing the rest. You’ll later share a summary and your conclusions, but your notes absolutely don’t need to be comprehensible to anyone other than you. ![]() Interview notes are your personal work product they aren’t something you’ll share. In fact, your notes only need to be sufficient to help you to recall the interview afterwards, no more. You don’t need to literally capture everything that was said. Please don’t interpret “stenographer” literally: your notes are nothing like a transcript. Problem: I can’t write fast enough to capture everything a candidate says! Data analysis comes later, after the interview at that point, you review your notes and start to make some conclusions. You’re capturing all the information the candidate is giving you, but not really thinking about it yet. During the interview itself all you’re doing is data collection. You should be capturing notes on the candidates behavior – what they told you, what they said, how they said it – but not yet trying to draw conclusions. Trying to take notes while also engaging critically with what your counterpart is saying is significantly more difficult than merely listening and capturing what was said without analysis.ĭuring the interview, be more like a stenographer. She contrasted that with trying to take notes while working with her coaching clients, where she’s actively listening, analyzing the pros and cons of what her clients are proposing, and thinking about how to follow up with more coaching prompts – all while trying to capture notes! I like to think of this as “stenographer mode”: capturing what was said, but not passing judgement or analyzing in any way. taking minuets at a meeting where she’s not an active participant. The first is capturing what was said without any value judgment, e.g. When I was talking this topic over with Sumana, she told me she has two very different styles of note-taking. Solution: capture data during the interview analyze later. Problem: it’s difficult to judge a candidate’s answer while interviewing and also taking notes ![]() The mild awkwardness this introduces can be easily mitigated by saying this with a friendly tone. It’s also totally fine to say something like “thanks, that was good, give me a minute to write that down” if you need a bit longer. Don’t be afraid of 10-15 seconds of silence. It’s fine to take a moment as a candidate finishes to capture some notes. ![]() You don’t need to be thinking about your next question as the candidate talks: follow-ups should be written down in your interview guide (more on this below). Yes, you need to ask follow-up and clarification questions, but those should be very short and to the point. As an interviewer you should be trying to talk as little as possible you want as much of the hour to be spent listening to what the candidate is saying. ![]() Good interviews are conversational, but they’re not a conversation! If you’re struggling to take notes and also carry a conversation, it’s worth asking if you might be talking too much. Let’s explore those techniques by working through the common problems that interviews face around note-taking: Problem: it’s difficult to take notes while carrying a conversation. Techniques for effective note-taking in interviews Like anything, note-taking during interviews is a skill that can be learned, and there are approaches and techniques that make it much easier. However, I do wonder if the folks struggling to take notes during an interview are approaching note-taking as effectively as possible. I know that people differ, and that what’s easy for me isn’t always easy for others. Mostly, this is because I don’t find taking notes while conducting an interview particularly difficult. This is certainly true, but I’m not sure the value of easier note-taking outweighs the problems that multiple interviewers introduces. Having two interviewers makes taking notes much easier: one person can interview while the other takes notes. One of the common pieces of feedback to my previous article arguing against panel interviews was that folks found it difficult to interview and take notes at the same time. ![]()
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