The write-up is what the client is paying for
A CV on its own is something the client could have found. The paragraph that comes with it is the product: you met this person, you tested them against the brief, and this is what you concluded. Clients read that paragraph first, and sometimes only that.
It is also the work that gets written last, from memory, between calls. So it shrinks to three lines of praise, which is what every other agency sent too.
This play builds the write-up from material you already hold: the CV, the spec, and your interview notes or the recording. It sets evidence against each must-have, and where there is none it says so. It records motivation, notice and salary the way the candidate put them. And it writes the concerns down, because a client who finds the gap unaided stops trusting the rest.
What comes back is a draft in your voice. The judgement in it is yours, and you are expected to change it.
What you get back
A write-up in four parts: a short case for the candidate, the must-haves with the evidence and its source beside each, the candidate's motivation, notice period and salary position as stated, and the concerns with the candidate's answer to each. Quotes are marked as quotes and inferences as inferences. At the top sits a short list of what you still need to ask. At the bottom, a line listing anything left out because it concerned a protected characteristic.
Variations worth knowing
From a recorded interview. If the screening call was recorded, its transcript is pulled the same way as in turn a recorded briefing call into a search brief, and the quotes are exact.
A shortlist of three. The same structure across each candidate lets the client compare like with like. One is written first so you can fix the shape.
Before the interview. The must-haves with empty evidence beside them make a useful interview plan. Scoring candidates against a spec is covered in turn a job spec into a ranked shortlist.
Where this goes wrong
Thin notes. The write-up can only be as specific as what went in. Three lines of notes produce a write-up with many blanks, and the blanks are honest.
A quote nobody said. Notes paraphrase. Unless the words came from a transcript, or you marked them as verbatim, they are reported as indicated, not quoted.
Speaker labels. On some recordings the transcript separates speakers by label, not by name. A line credited to the candidate may have been you. Read the quotes before a client does.
Salary tidied up. "Looking for a step up, flexible for the right role" is not a number. It is recorded as said, and the number goes on your list of things to ask.
Sending it as it comes. The draft does not know what you thought in the room. Add that before it goes.
