Notes Missing the Details

The details are what you sell with. Without them, your send-out says “strong communicator” when the candidate told you exactly how they turned a struggling team around.

So you call the candidate back to ask what you already heard, or you leave it out and the send-out reads like every other one.

Across a full desk of searches it adds up. Every conversation loses a little on the way to the page.

On a live call you’re doing three things at once: listening, deciding what to ask next, and writing. Writing loses. You get down the headline and maybe a phrase or two.

In the moment that feels like enough, because the rest is fresh in your head. A day and four more calls later, it isn’t. The memory fades, and the notes were never meant to carry it alone.

So what survives is the outline of the conversation. The specifics, the numbers, the example, the way they said it, lived only in your memory.

Your notes were never a record of the call. They were a reminder for a memory that’s already fading.

• Your notes are mostly short phrases and keywords.
• You remember the call went well but can’t point to what was said.
• You call people back to re-ask questions you already covered.
• Calls with similar candidates blur together in your notes.
• Your send-outs use general praise instead of the candidate’s own examples.

• The call really was thin. The candidate didn’t give specifics, and no record would change that.
• The questions didn’t draw it out. The details aren’t missing from your notes; they never came up.