Candidate Review: How to Assess a Candidate and Write It Up for the Hiring Manager

The candidate review you write when you put someone forward can carry more weight than the screening call behind it. A busy hiring manager or client may read nothing else before deciding whether to interview. A vague one leaves a strong candidate judged on a resume skim, and an oversold one costs you credibility next time.

A candidate review is a recruiter's written assessment of one candidate against the role's requirements, with the evidence behind each judgment. It leads with a recommendation, then covers fit by requirement, gaps, logistics, and what the interview should test.

What is a candidate review?

A candidate review is your candidate evaluation in written form, aimed at someone who wasn't on your screen. It comes before the interview loop, so it isn't the debrief or interviewer feedback.

The resume is the candidate's own case. The review adds what only you know: which requirements you could confirm and where the hiring manager should spend interview time.

The examples in this guide follow one search: an agency recruiter presenting a candidate for a client's senior accountant role. The candidate meets the close-process and enterprise resource planning (ERP) requirements, has an 18-month gap after a layoff, and wants pay above the posted range.

Check each requirement before you write the review

Work from the job requirements. Starting from the resume lets the candidate's strongest points set the agenda. Pull the list from the intake call or the job description, and separate must-haves from nice-to-haves if the client hasn't.

Note the evidence for each requirement and its source: a resume line, an answer from your phone screen, a work sample, or a reference. Much of it exists already if you collected evidence at each hiring stage. Work from your screen notes rather than memory, since details blur across a busy search.

Structured interviews in federal hiring rest on the same idea. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) publishes structured interview scoring guidance in which each interviewer records a score for each competency. That stops one impressive answer from covering for a requirement nobody checked. If you used an interview scorecard, carry over its requirements and ratings so the two documents agree.

Rate each one as met, partly met, or not shown. Not shown describes your evidence, not the candidate, so it becomes an interview topic rather than a rejection. Save "not met" for a requirement the candidate told you they lack, and if it's a must-have, ask yourself why you're sending them.

An all-met review reads as advocacy. One honest partly met rating with a plan to test it makes the rest more believable.

In the accountant example, month-end close is met because the candidate walked through their close calendar and reconciliations. ERP experience is met from the resume and the screen. Had the client also listed audit preparation and it never came up, the review would mark it not shown and add it to the interview topics.

How to write a candidate review: a template

Keep the order fixed and put the recommendation first, so a hiring manager reading several reviews knows where to look.

Logistics covers availability, notice period, location or relocation, pay expectation, and work authorization or sponsorship need. Tag each fact with its source so the reader can weigh it. For the senior accountant, the top of the review might read like this:

• Recommendation: Interview, with one condition. Meets the close-process and ERP requirements with specific examples. Pay expectation is above the posted range with stated flexibility, so confirm budget before scheduling.
• Fit by requirement: Month-end close met (walked through their close calendar and owned reconciliations, screen). ERP met (resume and screen).
• Gaps and how to check them: An 18-month break after a layoff, described as a planned break they're happy to discuss. They say they completed a CPA exam section then (candidate, screen).
• Logistics: Notice period and work authorization confirmed (candidate's statements, screen).
• What to probe: Close under a compressed deadline, and depth in the client's ERP modules.

Flagging pay in the first line can feel like talking the client out of your own candidate. But a final round that collapses over budget wastes everyone's time. Raised early, with the candidate's flexibility beside it, pay is a question the client can settle first.

What makes a candidate summary credible

Hiring managers act on a write-up when they can tell your opinion, your evidence, and the candidate's words apart. So mark the candidate's statements as theirs. The CPA exam section in the example is the candidate's claim, not a credential you checked.

Keep observations separate from interpretations. "An 18-month gap after a layoff" is an observation. "Probably struggled to find work" is speculation, and it has no place in the review. State the gap, then what the candidate said about it.

Say what you didn't verify, such as references not yet checked. A limit the client hears about from you is easier to handle than one found in the final round.

What to leave out of a candidate review

Leave out protected characteristics, guesses about them, and past pay wherever the law restricts asking for it. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) lists prohibited practices, and one is basing hiring decisions on stereotypes and assumptions about protected traits. Those traits are race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and transgender status), national origin, age (40 or older), disability, and genetic information.

That's why the accountant's gap line stays short. The candidate explained part of the break with a family reason, and the review leaves it out because family status invites assumptions unrelated to the job. "A planned break, which they're happy to discuss" covers it, and leaves the rest to the candidate.

Written comments also outlast a phone call. The EEOC's recordkeeping summary says private employers must keep hiring records for one year from the record or the personnel action, whichever is later. That's a federal minimum, longer when a discrimination charge is filed, so write as though an outsider will read it.

Pay history needs its own check. In California, an employer can't seek salary history "personally or through an agent," according to the Labor Commissioner's FAQ. It may still ask about salary expectations, and a candidate can volunteer past pay unprompted. Because the rule reaches agents, send the pay expectation and any stated flexibility, never past pay.

Agency and in-house reviews: who reads them

The template holds for both, but the reader changes the emphasis. An agency review goes to a client who may not know you yet and is comparing you with other agencies. Specific evidence sets yours apart, since a bare "strong fit" from every agency looks identical.

An in-house review often lands in the applicant tracking system (ATS), where panel interviewers read it long after your call. They know only what the page says, so spell out shorthand and name the source of each fact.

After the interview, did your read hold up?

Once the hiring manager has met the candidate, compare their feedback with your review. Useful interview feedback makes the comparison possible, since a vague comment can't be checked against a rating.

Suppose the client found the accountant's ERP depth thinner than your review suggested. Did your screen test the client's modules or only general ERP use? One miss can be noise, but a repeated one points to your screen questions. The decision itself belongs in the interview debrief, where your review records what was known beforehand.

Check your evidence before you send the review

Before the next review goes out, reread each met rating and ask whether you could show the evidence if the client pushed back. If you can't, call it partly met or not shown. That costs far less than a hiring manager finding out in the interview, and it earns your next candidate review a careful read.