**Interview Notes for Recruiters and Hiring Teams | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/business/hiring/

Hiring teams

# Interview notes for recruiters and hiring managers

Every interviewer works from what the candidate actually said, with timestamps, instead of from memory. The decision stays with people.

[Transcribe one interview free](https://web.sozai.app/)

## The short answer

With the candidate's consent, record the interview on a phone in the room, or record a video call in Chrome or Edge on web.sozai.app without any bot entering the call. SozAI returns a transcript with speakers and a timestamp on every line, in 99 languages, plus notes, so each interviewer can fill in their scorecard from the candidate's own words. SozAI does not score, rank or recommend candidates, and it should not be used to make hiring decisions automatically: people decide. A recruiting team buys seats at $12.99 a month or $99.99 a year each, and each interviewer's recordings stay private to them.

## What a transcript changes in a hiring loop

Interview notes are usually written from memory an hour later, and memory keeps the moments that confirm a first impression. Four interviewers then argue in the debrief about what the candidate "basically said". A transcript ends that argument. Anyone can find the answer to the system design question and read it as it was given.

It also makes notes comparable. When every interviewer asks the agreed questions and writes the scorecard from a transcript, the differences between candidates come from their answers, not from who took better notes.

There's a trap, though. AI notes are short and fluent, and it's tempting to paste them into the scorecard. Don't. A summary decides what was important; that judgment is the interviewer's job.

## A consistent loop, step by step

1. Agree the question list for the role before the first interview, and give the same list to every interviewer.
2. Tell the candidate in the invitation that interviews are recorded and transcribed, and why. Offer a way to decline.
3. At the start, ask again on the recording ("Is it all right if I record this?") so the consent is on the tape.
4. Record. In the room: SozAI on a phone on the table. On a video call opened in Chrome or Edge: web.sozai.app, Record, audio source "Both", then pick the tab with the call and turn on "Also share tab audio".
5. Rename the speakers to "Candidate" and "Interviewer" on the web or in the phone app.
6. Fill in your scorecard yourself the same day, quoting the transcript with timestamps where an answer was strong or weak.
7. In the debrief, read the disputed answer out. It takes thirty seconds.
8. Delete the recording when your retention policy says so. The account's audio setting can remove the audio for you (30 days after transcription, or right after it); the transcript stays until you delete it.

![SozAI web app: a conversation transcript next to its notes, with a summary, decisions and open questions](https://sozai.app/wp-content/themes/sozai/assets/images/screens/en/web-meeting-notes.webp)

## What to say to the candidate

Something like this works in an invitation, adapted to your company's wording:

> We record our interviews and turn them into a written transcript, so the people deciding work from what you actually said rather than from notes. The recording and transcript are used only for this hiring process and deleted after [period]. A person makes every decision; no software scores your interview. If you'd rather not be recorded, tell us and we'll take notes by hand instead.

Keep that last sentence. A candidate who declines should lose nothing, and the interview should go ahead as normal.

## What SozAI does and doesn't do in hiring

| SozAI does | SozAI does not |
| --- | --- |
| Write down the interview with speakers and timestamps | Score, rank or recommend candidates |
| Make notes with a summary and open questions | Judge tone, emotion, honesty or "culture fit" |
| Answer a question about one recording, such as "what did she say about her notice period?" | Compare candidates against each other |
| Translate a transcript into another language | Connect to an applicant tracking system; you export and attach |
| Export the transcript from the apps or the web (PDF and JSON from the apps only) | Join calls or read your calendar. It never emails candidates. |

If someone on the team uses the notes or the chat to answer "who should we hire?", the answer is a language model's guess based on a summary. Treat it as noise.

Rules on recording interviews differ between countries and US states. So do rules on using AI tools in hiring, and some are strict. Check with your legal or HR team before you start; we don't give legal advice.

## Interviews in another language

SozAI detects the language of each recording on its own, across 99 languages, and the transcript can be translated for a hiring manager who doesn't speak it. Use that translation to follow the conversation, not to judge how well someone speaks or argues. A machine translation can flatten a careful answer or make a clumsy one sound smooth. If language skill is part of the role, have someone who speaks it assess the original audio.

Recognition quality also varies by language. Our [published test](https://sozai.app/sozai-accuracy-test-10-languages/) on short read sentences measured 3.6% word errors in English and 4.9% in French, but 19.6% in Arabic. A noisy room makes every language worse.

## Where candidate data goes

Interview recordings are personal data, so know where they go. Files and recordings are stored on our servers in Germany (Hetzner); speech recognition for them runs at AssemblyAI in the US, and every company that processes them is on our [sub-processor list](https://sozai.app/subprocessors/). Our code never sends recordings into model training.

When a candidate asks you to delete their interview, delete the recording in SozAI. That removes the audio and everything made from it from our servers. Two limits to know: encrypted database backups keep data for up to 12 months, and the speech recognition partner's copy is not removed by deleting in SozAI. More on the [security page](https://sozai.app/security/).

## Seats for a recruiting team

Often only the recruiters need seats: they record, and hiring managers read the exported transcript. A recruiter or the head of talent buys seats on web.sozai.app, invites the team by email, and each person gets Premium with up to 700 hours of transcription on their own account. The buyer sees seats and invitations, never the recordings, so interviews don't pile up in a shared folder anyone can browse. Invoices with your company's tax ID are covered in [how to buy for a team](https://sozai.app/business/buying/).

## When SozAI is not a fit

- You want structured scoring and an ATS in one product. Use a hiring platform; SozAI only writes down the interview.
- You want a tool that joins every scheduled interview by itself. SozAI is never added to a call, and someone has to press record.
- Your company needs SSO for every tool, or a shared archive of all interviews with access controls.
- The interview is on a desktop Zoom or Teams app on Windows. Open the call in the browser instead, or use a Mac.

More on interview transcripts in general: [interview transcription](https://sozai.app/interview-transcription/). Client meetings are covered on [SozAI for consultants](https://sozai.app/business/consultants/), and research interviews on [SozAI for research teams](https://sozai.app/business/research-teams/). The overview of team use is on [SozAI for teams](https://sozai.app/business/).

Updated October 27, 2026 By [Merey Tleugazin](https://sozai.app/about/merey/)

Answers

## Frequently asked questions

Is it legal to record job interviews?

It depends on where you and the candidate are; recording and AI rules differ between countries and US states. Always tell the candidate, get their consent on the recording, and check with your legal or HR team. We don't give legal advice.

Does SozAI score or rank job candidates?

No. SozAI writes down the interview with speakers and timestamps and makes notes; it doesn't score, rank or recommend anyone. Hiring decisions should be made by people reading the candidate's own words.

Can I use AI meeting notes as my interview scorecard?

No, write the scorecard yourself. Use the transcript to quote the candidate accurately; a summary leaves things out and decides what mattered, which is the interviewer's judgment to make.

Can SozAI record a video interview without a bot joining?

Yes. Open the call in Chrome or Edge and record the browser tab on web.sozai.app with the audio source "Both". Nothing is added to the call, so tell the candidate you're recording.

How do I delete a candidate's interview from SozAI?

Delete the recording in the app or on the web; that removes the audio and transcript from our servers. Encrypted backups keep data up to 12 months, and the speech recognition partner's copy is not removed.

Does SozAI integrate with applicant tracking systems?

No. Export the transcript or notes as PDF or TXT and attach them to the candidate's record in your ATS.

Turn your next recording into text

Record, upload a file or paste a link. You get the transcript, speakers and a summary back.

 [Transcribe one interview free](https://web.sozai.app/)

Free on iOS and Android. No account required for YouTube transcripts.


---
This is the markdown twin of https://sozai.app/business/hiring/ — the same content, without the markup.
Published by SozAI (https://sozai.app). Reuse and quotation are allowed with attribution and a link back.
Machine-readable index: https://sozai.app/llms.txt · data API: https://sozai.app/api/