The job description already had the level and the interviewer already knew what level they were interviewing the candidate for, but we still asked the person filling this form to suggest the level at which they recommended hiring the candidate based on how the interview went. This helped us decouple the recommendation from the level.

So for example, if one of the interviewers recommended a "Hire with reservations" for a "Principal PM", we wanted to see if they would suggest a "Strong Hire" for a lower level such as "Senior PM".

This happened for one of our hires for whom we got all "Strong Hires", but a mixture of Principal and Senior PM levels. Instead of bringing them on as a Principal, we brought them on as a Senior PM, and then promoted them to a Principal after a few months of observing their performance.

The rating template and the process itself were rigorous enough that we could ignore one-off ratings and give the benefit of doubt to the candidates.

For example in this case, even when the candidate received a 3 on a single attribute, their overall average rating was (3+4+5+4+5)/5 = 4.2, and anything at or above a 4 was generally good to move forward.

In the 

, this person received 3's and 4's in different interviews for this particular attribute, with an overall average of (3+4+3+3+4+4)/6 = 3.5, but much stronger ratings (4's and 5's) for all the other attributes.

This candidate was hired as a Principal PM, and performed exceptionally well after about 1 year into the role.

Vishal Kapoor

At Shipt we created this interview template to record interview feedback allows interviewers to calibrate their assessments and leads to a fairer, more consistent process.

Product Manager Interview Feedback Template

Instructions and Qualitative Feedback

Quantitative Ratings

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