Free hiring tool

Design an interview process you could defend

Most early stage interview processes are improvised, which is why two candidates get two different assessments and nobody can explain the decision afterwards. About ten minutes, saved in your browser as you go: set the stages, say what each one must prove, name who runs it, and print the scorecard.

Every stage earns its place

Each stage states what it must prove. If you cannot write that sentence, drop the stage.

Named owners

Interviews without an owner get rescheduled. Put a name against each one.

Consistent and comparable

Same core questions, same evidence areas, written down before you meet anyone.

Yours to print or share

Print it, or copy a link for the panel. The process you build by hand is kept on your own device. If you choose to draft from a job description, that pasted text is sent for processing.

Nothing written yet

Nothing yet

Start with a suggested process, write your own, or build one from a job description.

Start with a typical process

Four stages used widely by small technology teams: an intro conversation, an assessment of the actual work, a team session and a final decision. These stages are suggestions. Edit, remove or reorder them — they are not required, and they are not best practice for every employer.

Prefer a blank page? Use “Add a stage” below and write your own.

Build a draft from a job description

The process you build by hand stays in this browser. This is the one part of the tool that does not: if you paste a job description here, that text is sent securely to our server and on to the AI service that writes the draft, so we can return an editable suggested process. Startup Staffing does not store it, add it to analytics or keep a copy. We do not control the AI provider’s own operational logging, so please do not paste anything confidential or anything personal about a candidate.

Files are not accepted yet — paste the text instead. The result is a suggested draft: it is not checked, not legal or compliance advice, and not guaranteed to suit your role.

Job description text

0 of 12,000 characters. At least 120 are needed.

1. The role

Optional, and only used to label the document you print or share. Choosing a role type lets you load a different suggested pattern — those are common sequences in small technology teams, not validated formats for any particular discipline.

Role title

Role type

Seniority

Loading a suggested pattern replaces the stages below. Your role title and notes are kept.

2. The stages

0 of 6 stages · 0 minutes of candidate time

A stage is worth keeping once it has a name and one sentence saying what it must prove. Owner, timing, evidence and questions are optional detail you can add later.

No stages yet. Start from the suggested process above, or add a stage and write your own.

Maximum 6 stages. 6 remaining.

3. How the decision gets made

Agree this before the first interview. Deciding the rule after you have met someone you like is how inconsistent hiring happens.

Everyone who interviewed must agreeSlowest and most conservative. Works with a small, experienced panel; can stall on one unexplained no.Hiring manager decides, having read every scorecardFastest and clearest accountability. Only defensible if the written evidence is actually read.Scores against each evidence area, with an agreed barMost consistent across candidates. Needs the bar agreed before the first interview, not after.

Notes for the panel (optional)

Your interview process

0 stages · 0 minutes of candidate time

Structured evaluation reminders

Ask every candidate for a role the same core questions, in the same order, so answers can be compared.
Write evidence down during or immediately after the stage — not after the debrief has formed a view.
Score against the evidence areas you agreed before you met anyone, not against a favourite candidate.
Only assess what the role genuinely requires. If a criterion would not change the decision, drop it.
Never ask about age, health or disability, race or nationality, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy, maternity or caring responsibilities. Ask about the work instead.
If an adjustment is needed for a candidate to show their ability, make it — and keep the evidence bar the same.

What a good technical interview process looks like

A process is only useful when every stage proves something the previous stage did not. In practice that means each stage has a named owner, a stated purpose, an agreed set of questions and a clear decision rule at the end. Most startup processes fail not because they are too short, but because two stages quietly assess the same thing while nobody assesses the thing the role actually needs.

Each stage proves one thing: Write down what a stage is for before you write the questions. If you cannot say what a stage proves, it is a duplicate of another one.
Each stage has an owner: One named person is accountable for running the stage and recording the outcome, even if others attend.
Questions are agreed in advance: Agreed questions make candidates comparable. Improvised interviews compare interviewers, not candidates.
The decision rule is set first: Decide up front whether the call is consensus, hiring-manager decides, or a scored threshold. Deciding afterwards is how good candidates get lost.
Length is a cost to the candidate: Every extra stage lengthens the process and loses people who are in other conversations. Add stages only when they prove something new.
Write it down before you go to market: A process agreed after the first candidate appears is a process that changes mid-search, which makes the shortlist meaningless.

A generic example for a mid-level software engineering role. It is a starting point, not a recommendation for your specific role — the builder above lets you change every part of it.
Stage	Format	Length	What it should prove
Intro conversation	Intro conversation	30 min	Check the role, the level and the practical basics genuinely match on both sides.
Technical deep dive	Technical discussion	60 min	Go deep on work they did themselves and the reasoning behind the hard decisions.
Practical exercise	Practical exercise or work sample	90 min	See how they actually work on a realistic, time-boxed problem.
Team and ways of working	Structured interview	45 min	Understand how they work with others when things are ambiguous or contested.

The process you build by hand stays in this browser, and nothing you type into it is sent to us unless you choose to share it. The one exception is the optional draft writer: if you paste a job description into it, that text is sent for processing so a suggested draft can be written, and the draft comes back editable.