Under federal EEOC rules, you must keep interview notes for at least one year from the date of the hiring decision or the date the note was created, whichever is later. That one-year floor is the answer for most employers with 15 or more employees. Several situations push it longer: hiring the candidate, receiving a discrimination charge, using selection tools that show adverse impact, or holding a federal contract. Knowing how long to keep interview notes means knowing which of those extenders applies to you.
The One-Year EEOC Baseline
The rule lives at 29 CFR 1602.14, which implements Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Any employer with 15 or more employees must preserve records related to hiring, promotion, and termination for at least one year.1eCFR. 29 CFR 1602.14 – Preservation of Records Made or Kept Interview notes fall squarely inside that category, along with applications, screening records, test results, and scored evaluations.
The clock starts on the later of two dates: when the record was created, or when the personnel decision it relates to was made. So if you interview a candidate in March and finalize the hire in June, June is the start date. For a candidate you reject, the clock starts on the day you decided not to hire them. For an employee you terminate, you must keep their personnel records for one year from the termination date.1eCFR. 29 CFR 1602.14 – Preservation of Records Made or Kept
If you have fewer than 15 employees, the EEOC retention mandate doesn’t reach you directly. Other federal laws and many state requirements still might, so the one-year floor is a safe working assumption even below the threshold.
When You Need to Keep Notes Longer
Candidates You Actually Hired
Notes for a hired candidate tend to live inside a broader personnel file that quickly picks up longer retention obligations. The IRS requires employers to keep employment tax records for at least four years after filing the fourth-quarter return for the year.2Internal Revenue Service. Employment Tax Recordkeeping Interview notes aren’t tax records on their own, but once they sit in a personnel file with dates of employment, pay, and withholding paperwork, the four-year period effectively absorbs them.
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act adds a separate layer. Under 29 CFR 1627.3, payroll records with each employee’s name, address, date of birth, occupation, pay rate, and weekly compensation must be kept for three years.3eCFR. 29 CFR 1627.3 – Records To Be Kept by Employers For applications, test results, and similar hiring records, the ADEA requires only one year from the personnel action. The three-year figure often gets misquoted as a blanket interview-note rule; it isn’t.
A Discrimination Charge or Lawsuit
Any active or threatened claim overrides your normal retention schedule. Once someone files a charge with the EEOC or a lawsuit, 29 CFR 1602.14 requires you to keep every personnel record relevant to the charge, including records for the person who filed and for other applicants or employees in similar positions, until the matter is fully resolved.1eCFR. 29 CFR 1602.14 – Preservation of Records Made or Kept A case that takes three or four years to resolve keeps those interview notes off-limits for destruction the entire time.
The practical mechanism is a litigation hold: a formal internal directive telling everyone to stop any routine destruction of documents connected to the claim. The hold stays in place until the dispute ends through settlement, judgment, or dismissal. Learning about a claim and failing to issue a hold is one of the fastest ways to turn a defensible case into a losing one.
Selection Processes That Show Adverse Impact
If you use structured interviews, tests, or scored evaluations that produce different selection rates across demographic groups, retention obligations can stretch further. The Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures define adverse impact as a selection rate for any race, sex, or ethnic group below four-fifths (80 percent) of the rate for the highest-selected group.4eCFR. 28 CFR 50.14 – Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures
Where adverse impact has appeared, the Guidelines say you should continue collecting and maintaining records on the individual components of the selection process for at least two years after the impact has been eliminated. If you don’t yet have enough data to determine whether adverse impact exists, you should keep collecting until you do.4eCFR. 28 CFR 50.14 – Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures
Federal Contractors: A Rule in Transition
Federal contractors used to face a stricter standard. Under Executive Order 11246 and 41 CFR 60-1.12, contractors with 150 or more employees or contracts worth at least $150,000 had to keep hiring records, including interview notes, for two years. Smaller contractors followed the one-year standard.5eCFR. 41 CFR 60-1.12 – Record Retention
That framework is unsettled. Executive Order 14173, signed January 21, 2025, revoked EO 11246 and directed the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs to stop enforcing affirmative action requirements.6The White House. Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity In July 2025 the Department of Labor proposed a rule to formally rescind the EO 11246 implementing regulations, including the two-year retention rule at 41 CFR 60-1.12, taking the position that these regulations are null and void.7Federal Register. Rescission of Executive Order 11246 Implementing Regulations The regulation text still appears in the Code of Federal Regulations as of early 2026 even though DOL has halted enforcement. Contractors should check with counsel; at minimum, the one-year EEOC baseline still applies to any contractor with 15 or more employees.
Medical Information Belongs in a Separate File
If your interview process includes a post-offer medical examination or any disability-related inquiry, the ADA sets a confidentiality rule that changes where you store the notes, not how long you keep them. Under 42 U.S.C. ยง 12112(d)(3)(B), medical information collected during hiring must be kept on separate forms and in separate medical files, not in the general personnel folder.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 12112 – Discrimination Any interview note referencing a candidate’s medical condition, disability, or accommodation request should be pulled out and stored separately from the start.
What Happens If You Destroy Interview Notes Too Early
Premature destruction is not just a recordkeeping violation. It can change the outcome of a discrimination case. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e), if a party fails to preserve electronically stored information that should have been kept, the court has a range of options. Negligent destruction that causes prejudice can bring curative measures. Destruction with intent to deprive the other side of the evidence can bring an adverse inference instruction, where the jury is told to presume the missing records would have been unfavorable, or even a default judgment.
An adverse inference instruction is devastating in practice. A jury told it may assume the destroyed documents would have hurt the employer’s case is a jury already leaning toward the plaintiff. Courts have imposed sanctions even for negligent destruction in some jurisdictions, depending on the degree of prejudice. Treat retention periods as minimums rather than targets.
Storing and Disposing of Interview Records
Store interview notes where only HR or legal staff can reach them. Physical files go in locked cabinets. Digital records go in encrypted systems with role-based access. Centralized storage prevents the common problem of hiring managers keeping their own copies in desk drawers or personal email, copies that are harder to protect and easier to forget about when a litigation hold arrives.
Once the applicable retention period expires and no litigation hold is in place, destroy the records thoroughly. Shred, burn, or pulverize paper. Permanently erase digital files with software that overwrites the data rather than sending them to the recycle bin. Note one common misapplication: the FACTA Disposal Rule at 16 CFR Part 682 requires secure disposal of “consumer information,” but that term is limited to data from consumer reports such as background checks and credit reports, not general interview notes.9eCFR. 16 CFR Part 682 – Disposal of Consumer Report Information and Records If you pulled a background check on a candidate, FACTA governs that report; your interview notes fall outside its scope but should still be destroyed securely.
Set a regular purge schedule tied to your longest applicable retention period. When the date passes for a batch of records and no hold exists, destroy the whole batch at once rather than making case-by-case calls that drift into inconsistency.