Interview questions for your first hire, with a scorecard

You have five people coming in for the accounts assistant job. You talk to each one for twenty minutes. At the end, you remember who was friendly. You don't remember who can actually do a bank reconciliation.

This happens to most owners. Each interview goes a different way, so the answers are hard to compare.

AI can give you a set of questions and a scorecard for the role. You then ask every candidate the same things. Here is how to do it.

What to give the AI

Write down your must-haves. These are the few things the person must be able to do from day one. Keep it to four or five. For example:

• Can do sales and purchase entries in Tally
• Can do a bank reconciliation
• Polite but firm with customers who pay late
• Careful with details

Each one should be about the work. "Good family background" is not a must-have. "Can use Excel" is.

What to ask

Copy this into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. Put your own role and must-haves in the brackets.

I am hiring for one role at a small business. Prepare interview questions and a scorecard.

Role: [Accounts assistant]
Must-haves:
[Can do sales and purchase entries in Tally]
[Can do a bank reconciliation]
[Polite but firm with customers who pay late]
[Careful with details]

Rules:
- One numbered section for each must-have, in the same order, with the must-have as the heading.
- Under each, one or two questions that ask what the candidate did, or would do.
- Where the must-have is a skill they can show at a desk, add a short practical task.
- End with a scorecard: one row for each must-have, scored 1 to 5, and a total.
- Ask only about the must-haves.
- Never ask about gender, age, marriage, family plans, religion, caste or health.

What you get

You get one section for each must-have. For Tally, it might say: "Walk me through how you enter a purchase bill." Then a task: give them three sample bills to enter while you watch.

For late payers, it might say: "A customer is 45 days late and keeps saying 'next week'. What do you say on the next call?"

At the end is a scorecard. With four must-haves, the total is out of 20.

What to check

1. Every question ties to a must-have. Delete any question that doesn't. "Where do you see yourself in five years?" tells you little about Tally.
2. The tasks are short. Ten minutes is enough. Get the sample bills or bank statement ready before the interview. Use made-up figures, not your real accounts.
3. Nothing personal. No questions about marriage, children, where their family is from, or their health. If the AI adds one, delete it.

Why this works

Each question comes from a must-have you chose. So every candidate is judged on the same things.

The practical task shows you what they can do, not only what they say. And the scorecard lets you compare five people a day later, when the interviews have blurred together.

Fill in the score straight after each interview, while you still remember.