PSG Excel - Free Template

1. Start on PSG Tracker and enter each candidate on its own row. Add the city, school or employer, case type, interview date, round, and interviewer.
2. Enter the case and fit scores using the workbook’s 1-10 scale. If your process uses 8 candidates and 3 interviewers, this keeps the review list aligned fast.
3. Check the overall score and pass flag after each round. Use the notes field to capture issues like slow math, weak synthesis, or strong communication.
4. Review Summary Dashboard for the big picture. The charts help you see whether average scores are trending up or down across the pipeline.
5. Use Scoring Guide before the interviews begin so everyone applies the same standard. That matters when one reviewer is harsh and another gives mostly 9s.
6. Keep Instructions handy if you hand the file to a new recruiter or case team member. A 5-minute handoff is usually enough when the layout stays simple.

In practice, this file is useful when you are managing a consulting recruiting pipeline with more than a few candidates. A campus recruiter, case coach, or office admin can enter 12 candidates, 3 interviewers, and 2 rounds without losing track of who still needs a follow-up.

On the PSG Tracker sheet, you can record candidate name, target city, school or employer, case type, interview date, round, interviewer, case score, fit score, overall score, pass flag, follow-up date, and notes. That is enough detail to compare a Wharton candidate in New York against a Northwestern candidate in Chicago without flipping through separate spreadsheets.

Why this matters during live interview cycles

The pressure point is usually the week of interviews or the afternoon after a round ends. If 8 interviews happen on Tuesday and each interviewer sends feedback in a different format, the tracker keeps the numbers in one row per candidate.

A simple example from the field

Say you have 10 candidates, each with a case score and fit score on a 1-10 scale. If 4 people score 8.5 or higher and 3 candidates need follow-up by Friday, the tracker lets you sort those rows in seconds instead of rebuilding the list by hand.

This is not a tax or payroll file, but the same discipline that matters in accounting still applies: use a fixed scale and keep the notes readable. A 1-10 scoring system only works if everyone knows what a 7 means versus a 9, which is exactly why the Scoring Guide sheet belongs in the workbook.

For a consulting process, consistency matters more than a fancy formula. If one interviewer grades harshly and another gives every strong answer a 9, your average score becomes noise, not a decision tool.

Use the guide before the interviews start

Set the standard before you collect the first row. For example, if a candidate gets a case score of 6.0 and a fit score of 8.0, you can still make a reasoned call based on the overall pattern instead of arguing about one impression in Slack.

Keep the file simple enough to maintain

In small recruiting teams, a workbook usually beats a complex system when you are handling 5 to 25 active candidates. Once you start layering in offer approvals, interview calibration, and recruiter assignments across multiple offices, a spreadsheet may still work — but only if the scoring rules stay strict and the notes stay short.

The most common failure is inconsistent input. One person writes “strong fit” in Notes, another writes “great personality,” and a third forgets to enter the follow-up date, which means the next action gets missed and the candidate sits idle for a week.

Another problem is score inflation. If 6 candidates all get case scores between 8.5 and 9.5, the spreadsheet stops helping you distinguish who should move on, and you end up making the decision from memory instead of data.

Bad data creates slow decisions

Imagine a process with 15 candidates and 4 interviewers. If each reviewer spends just 10 extra minutes searching email for the right notes, that is 40 minutes of wasted time per cycle, and it can easily become 2 to 3 hours once feedback is disputed.

Small mistakes have real recruiting costs

A missed follow-up can hurt response rates, especially when candidates are interviewing elsewhere. If you lose one strong finalist because the next-round date was not entered, the cost is not theoretical — it can mean reopening the search or extending the process by 1 to 2 weeks.

The best way to keep this workbook alive is to tie it to a fixed event, like the end of each interview day or the Friday debrief. If you update it at the same time every week, it becomes part of the process instead of a file you only open when something goes wrong.

Three habits that keep the tracker useful

• Copy the prior round’s structure before the next batch of interviews so the column order never drifts.
• Enter scores the same day while the interview is fresh; a 24-hour delay usually makes notes weaker and less specific.
• Use the dashboard as your review checkpoint, not as a decoration. If the pass rate looks off, check the source rows before the meeting starts.

When a spreadsheet is no longer enough

If your recruiting pipeline grows to dozens of candidates across multiple offices, you may need an applicant tracking system or shared database. The workbook still works well for a lean team, but once 30 to 50 active records are being edited by several people at once, version control becomes the real problem.

Once 30 to 50 active records are being edited by several people at once, version control becomes the real problem, and the same workload is easier to visualize in a labor planning chart.