Comparing Candidates for a Role

You've interviewed a few people for the role — now step back and look at the whole field at once. Comparing candidates helps you reach a confident decision without rewatching hours of interviews: ask questions across everyone in plain language with Ask Lavalier AI, or scan the Compare Candidates to Role grid to see how each person measures up against what the role actually needs. It's the last step before you decide who moves forward.

Two Ways to Compare

There are two ways to compare candidates, and you can jump into either one right from the role page:

• Ask Lavalier AI — Ask questions and get answers backed by what candidates actually said; best for open-ended, cross-candidate questions. Open it by typing a question into the chat input at the top of the page and clicking Ask Lavalier AI, or by clicking Actions → Compare Candidates.
• Compare Candidates to Role — See every candidate lined up against the role's requirements in a grid; best for a quick, structured read of who fits. Open it with the Compare Candidates to Role button.

Once you're in, a button in the page header switches between the two views anytime.

Ask Lavalier AI

1. Select which candidates to compare

The left panel shows all active candidates for the role. Candidates with completed interviews are selectable—6 are selected by default, but you can click any card to add or remove them. Candidates who haven't interviewed yet appear greyed out with Has not interviewed yet and can't be selected until they complete an interview.

Hover over a card to see detailed insights about that candidate's interview performance.

2. Ask your questions

Type any question in the chat panel. Lavalier analyzes the selected candidates' interviews and responds with evidence links to transcript quotes.

Your conversation saves automatically, so you can pick up where you left off. Conversations expire after 12 hours of inactivity—click Start new conversation to clear the chat anytime.

Note: Lavalier provides insights based on interview data. It won't recommend who to hire—that decision is yours.

Example questions:

• "Who has experience managing budgets over $500K?"
• "Which candidates provided examples of stakeholder communication?"
• "Who described a time they failed and what they learned?"
• "Who has led cross-functional teams?"

The more specific your question, the more targeted the answer.

Compare Candidates to Role

Click Compare Candidates to Role to open the grid. Each row is one of the role's requirements—responsibilities, skills, technologies, work style, education, and experience—and each column is a candidate. The column header shows the candidate's name alongside a summary of their interview recommendations, so you can size up the whole field at a glance.

Where a candidate meets a requirement, you'll see how they did on it, drawn from their interviews. Hover over any result to read the detail and jump to the supporting moment in the transcript.

Focus on one candidate: Click a candidate's name in the grid—or, from their profile, click the Compare Candidate to Role button on their application card—to see just that person mapped against the role, with a column for each of their interviews.

Add your own assessments: The grid isn't only AI-generated—you can add, edit, and delete items anywhere in it. Hover over a candidate's result and use the Add, Edit, and Delete icons at the top-right of the detail panel:

• Add opens a menu to add a Strength, Observation, or Thing to Consider—even for a requirement that wasn't discussed in the interviews. Lavalier re-analyzes the transcript and drafts an entry (headline, explanation, and supporting transcript links) that you can accept, edit, or refresh with Generate Again. If there's no supporting evidence, Lavalier tells you and you can still write your own.
• Edit lets you change the item's type, headline, and explanation, or remove transcript links.
• Delete removes an item after confirmation.

Items you or a teammate have changed show an Edited by [name] note.

What's next?

This is where the story pays off: make your call. When someone's the one, move them forward — or schedule the next round to keep the conversation going. Just make sure you've captured your feedback on everyone first.

Schedule the next round → Write interview feedback →

Frequently Asked Questions