Interview management software centralizes the preparation, delivery and follow-up of a company’s professional and annual review interviews: scheduling, evaluation templates, written summaries, objectives and follow-up actions. It replaces campaigns run through spreadsheets or standalone forms, which make it difficult to compare results across teams or years.
What is interview management software?
Interview management software is a platform dedicated to running professional and annual review campaigns: it schedules campaigns, provides standardized templates, collects signed summaries and tracks the actions decided during the interview (training, mobility, objectives). It brings two things a shared spreadsheet cannot: a usable history from one campaign to the next, and a consolidated view across the whole company rather than team by team.
In France, the tool also answers a regulatory requirement: the professional interview is mandatory every two years for each employee, with a recap review every six years. A company unable to prove these interviews took place faces litigation risk, particularly when an employee leaves or during a labor inspection, which is why traceability matters, keeping the date, the template used and both signatures for each campaign.
Beyond the regulatory requirement, the tool mainly acts as institutional memory: it prevents information raised during an interview, such as a training request or a difficulty on a given role, from being lost between campaigns simply because it was never written down anywhere but the manager’s notes.
Key features of interview management software
Most solutions on the market share the same core building blocks:
- Campaign scheduling: automatic invitations based on seniority or the date of the last interview, with reminders for managers and employees.
- Configurable templates: evaluation grids adapted by role or level, with free-text fields for individual objectives.
- Signature and archiving of summaries: timestamped storage, useful in case of an audit or an employment tribunal dispute.
- Follow-up on decided actions: training requests, mobility requests, objectives for the following year, with automatic reminders if an action is not started.
- HR dashboards: campaign completion rate by department, summary of training requests raised, skills gaps identified.
Some vendors add complementary features depending on the target company profile: employee self-assessment before the interview, 360-degree questionnaires including peer feedback, or training suggestions aligned with detected skills gaps. These remain secondary compared to the five core functions listed above, which cover most of the obligations and uses of an interview campaign.
Professional interviews and annual reviews: what the tool must cover
The two interviews serve different purposes, and most software handles them with distinct templates within a single module:
- The professional interview covers the employee’s medium-term path: development prospects, training needs, career plans. It never covers an assessment of completed work.
- The annual review covers the past year’s activity: whether objectives were met, difficulties encountered, objectives for the coming year.
A single tool covering both avoids re-entering the employee’s basic information twice, and makes it possible to cross-reference training requests raised in the professional interview with the assessment from the annual review.
The link with workforce and skills planning
Interview summaries are the raw material for workforce and skills planning: training requests raised by employees, skills gaps noted by managers, mobility being considered. Interview management software that feeds directly into the HRIS’s skills map avoids having to reconstruct this information afterward in a separate spreadsheet, something that often limits how much companies without this link actually use the data.
How to choose interview management software
The most decisive criterion remains adoption by managers: a feature-rich tool perceived as slow to fill in leads to rushed or late summaries, which cancels out the benefit of the whole exercise. The following criteria help compare market offers:
| Criterion | What to check |
|---|---|
| Ease of data entry | Manager and employee journeys in a few screens, no re-entry |
| Template configuration | Grids adaptable by role, level or subsidiary |
| Action follow-up | Automatic reminders on untreated training or mobility requests |
| HRIS integration | Connection with the employee directory and existing skills map |
| Reporting | Dashboards on campaign completion rate and skills gaps |
Empowill operates in this space with an offering centered on interview campaigns and their connection with training and skills, built for French SMEs and mid-sized companies looking for a dedicated tool rather than a secondary module of their general HRIS.
Interview management software and a general HRIS: do you have to choose?
The two tools answer complementary rather than competing needs. A general HRIS covers personnel administration and sometimes payroll, with an interview module often limited to a basic form. Interview management software goes deeper on this one area alone: detailed templates, action follow-up, a bridge to skills data. Companies with demanding interview campaigns, or a strong traceability requirement, generally benefit from connecting both rather than relying solely on the interview module built into the HRIS.
In practice, the choice mostly depends on the size of the organization. A small company with few managers can make do with a basic interview module built into its HRIS, as long as the volume of campaigns stays manageable by hand. A mid-sized company with several hundred employees and managers spread across multiple sites has more to gain from a dedicated tool, which industrializes reminders, consolidation and action follow-up at that scale.
Frequently asked questions
Does interview management software replace the interview itself?
No. The tool structures the campaign (scheduling, templates, written summary, follow-up actions) but never replaces the conversation between manager and employee. Its value lies in traceability and comparability of data from one campaign to the next, not in automating the interview itself.
What is the difference between interview management software and a general HRIS?
A general HRIS covers personnel administration, sometimes payroll and time tracking, with an often basic interview module. Interview management software focuses on professional and annual review campaigns, their templates, follow-up, and their link with skills data. The two tools connect rather than replace each other.
Do you need a different tool for professional interviews and annual reviews?
No, most vendors cover both in a single module with distinct templates: the professional interview covers career development and training, the annual review covers the past year’s activity and objectives. A single tool avoids re-entering the same employee information twice.
How does interview management software connect with workforce and skills planning?
Interview summaries feed the skills map used for workforce and skills planning: training requests, gaps noted by managers, mobility considered. A tool that isolates interviews from the rest of the HRIS forces this data to be re-entered elsewhere, which limits how much it actually gets used.
How do you choose interview management software for an SME or mid-sized company?
The top priority is adoption by managers: a template that is too complex or a long data-entry process discourages completing summaries. Also check how easily templates can be configured for the company, the quality of follow-up on actions decided during the interview, and integration with the existing HRIS to avoid re-entering data.
To go further, see also the guide on talent management software, the specifics of the professional interview and the annual review, and the practice of people review for companies steering talent at executive committee level.