For HR, recruiting and ops
Ask first. Then listen.
Recordist takes meeting notes on your Mac. It never joins the call, it asks before it records, and the audio is never uploaded. The three short films below are comedies about Friday at 4:55. The rest of the page says what in them is real.
quick q · three Fridays
Each film is a dramatisation: fictional people, generated voices. The app screens are recreated from the app’s own screens and wording, with time compressed. Captions are on screen, and the script is under each film.
Bonus, nine seconds: Not this one. Some calls aren’t for notes.
What’s real in the skits
| In the films | What’s true |
|---|---|
| The bots, and “nobody new in the room” | Recordist never joins the call. It listens to your own computer (your microphone and your computer’s sound), so there’s no bot in the participant list and nothing changes for anyone else. |
| The card that waits | When an app starts using your microphone, a small card asks “Record this meeting?” Nothing is recorded until you click Record, and if you ignore it, it goes away after 45 seconds. The one exception is an app you put on the automatic-recording list in Settings. That list is empty until you add to it; for interviews and 1:1s, leave it that way so the card always asks. |
| “Mind if I record?” | Recordist doesn’t announce itself and doesn’t ask anyone for consent. You do, and the card says so: “You’re responsible for getting consent where it’s required.” Every recording in the films starts with someone asking out loud. |
| “Just between us?” | One click on Not this one and that conversation isn’t recorded. |
| The amber dot | While Recordist is recording, a pulsing amber dot sits in the menu bar. |
| “Great answer re: the thing” | Notes are written on your Mac after you hang up. With the built-in engine that takes a few minutes; the films skip ahead. The Interview template asks for evidence kept apart from interpretation, with short quotes word for word. AI notes are unlimited for the first 14 days on Free, then 3 a month; recording, transcripts and search stay free. |
| “It takes the notes. I make the call.” | Notes are instructed to use only what was said, and they can still be wrong. Transcripts can be less accurate for some accents and ways of speaking, so check a candidate’s words against the recording before they count for or against anyone. The recording stays on your Mac, and clicking a line of the transcript plays that moment. |
| One word, one answer | Type a word and see every meeting it was said in, with the sentence and the time. Click a result to open that moment, then click the line to hear it. The index lives on your Mac and works offline. |
| “My scorecards by Wednesday” | After a call, action items come with an owner and a due date when those were said, and you can tick them off. The notes are instructed never to add people, owners or numbers that aren’t in the transcript. They can still get it wrong, which is why the recording is kept. |
| “Candidate”, “Theo”, “Ops team” | Your voice is labelled You. Everyone on the other side of a call shares one label: the attendee’s name when the calendar invite has one other person, otherwise “Speaker”, which you can rename for each meeting. Separate labels for each remote person aren’t available yet. |
| What’s made up | The people, the voices, the bots, the companies and the dates. The app screens are recreated from the app’s own screens and wording, with time compressed. The 4:55 “quick q” is real, but it isn’t a feature. |
Asking to record
Recordist doesn’t ask anyone for you. Here’s one way to say it at the start of an interview or a 1:1:
“Before we start: mind if I record this so I can listen instead of typing? The recording stays on my laptop and is deleted after 30 days. My notes go into our hiring system as usual. It’s completely fine to say no.”
Change the number to match how long you keep audio (you choose it in Settings). If they’d rather not, click Not this one and take notes the old way. If someone joins partway through, ask again.
Some places require everyone in the conversation to agree (all-party consent), for example California, Washington state and others. On a call, the rule where the other person is can apply too. Consent isn’t the only rule for employers: candidate privacy notices, how long you keep interview records, and rules on monitoring your own staff can apply as well. Our pages on recording law, one per place, are at recordist.app/legal/recording. They’re general information, not legal advice; your company’s policy and counsel come first.
The Interview and 1:1 templates
Templates tell the notes what to pay attention to. Two of the built-ins are written for people work, and we’re changing both in the next version. Here is exactly what they say today, and what changes.
- Interview. Today: “Separate evidence from interpretation. List notable quotes verbatim (short). For hiring: strengths, concerns, and signals per competency.” It writes a summary, open questions and action items. In version 0.3.10 the hiring line becomes “note what was said about each competency; do not rate, rank or recommend anyone”, because notes shouldn’t judge candidates.
- 1:1. Today: “Capture feedback given and received, career topics, commitments from both sides, and mood signals worth remembering. Be discreet in tone.” In 0.3.10 the mood line goes, replaced by “Do not describe anyone’s mood, health or personal life.”
The other built-ins are General, Daily standup, Sales call, Customer call, Lecture and Brainstorm. Custom templates are Pro.
By default, notes carry the app’s own reminder, and every export keeps it: “Check against the recording before you act on anything here, especially legal, medical, financial, employment or safety decisions.” Very short recordings (under about 30 spoken words) get no AI notes; the notes just quote the transcript.
Before a second-round interview or a recurring 1:1, a Prep Brief shows what you decided last time and the action items still open on both sides. It needs calendar access and works for calendar events with attendees you’ve met before. It appears up to 45 minutes before the call, built from your own past meetings on your Mac.
Questions an HR leader asks
Where does the audio go?
It stays on your Mac. Transcription and notes happen on the Mac, and the audio is never uploaded. There’s no account and no telemetry.
The Privacy Ledger lists every network request the app has ever made, and none of them carries meeting content. If you choose to connect your own cloud AI key, the ledger shows exactly what then goes out.
You choose how long audio is kept (for example 30 or 90 days), or have it deleted as soon as the transcript is done. Automatic deletion removes the audio; the transcript and notes stay until you delete the meeting.
Can a candidate ask me to delete it?
Recordist lets you delete any meeting, and you can set audio to delete itself after the period you choose.
Whether you should delete a particular interview is a question for your company’s record-keeping policy. Hiring records often have a minimum retention period, and anything under a legal hold must be kept. A recording on your Mac is still a company record. Copies in an export folder, a backup or your applicant tracking system are yours to handle there.
Does it join the call?
No. There’s no bot in the participant list and nothing for anyone to admit. Recordist listens to your own computer. That also means it doesn’t tell anyone it’s recording, so ask first.
Does it work for in-person interviews?
Yes. Press Cmd+Shift+R and the same card asks before anything is recorded. Ask out loud first, as you would on a call. In a room both voices reach the one microphone, so everything is labelled You, including what the candidate says. Check who said what against the recording before you rely on a quote.
What about confidential conversations?
Don’t record them: investigations, complaints, health matters, and anything someone asks to keep between you. Click Not this one and nothing is written. If a recorded conversation turns sensitive, pause or stop from the menu bar. Don’t delete what was already recorded on your own; take it to whoever handles records and legal holds at your company.
Is the AI judging candidates?
It gives no scores and no rankings. Notes summarise what was said, from the transcript, on your Mac. Today the Interview template also asks for “strengths, concerns, and signals per competency”; from version 0.3.10 it is told to note what was said about each competency and not to rate, rank or recommend anyone. The decision stays with people.
Try it on your next interview.
The beta is free. Requires macOS 14.6 or later on Apple silicon. Early builds aren’t notarised by Apple yet, so macOS asks you to allow the first launch once; on a managed work laptop, your IT team may need to allow it. A work email address gets a download link in about a minute. There’s nothing to earn and no queue.
AI notes: unlimited for the first 14 days, then 3 a month on Free. Recording, transcripts and search stay free.
Know someone in HR, recruiting or ops this would help? The address is recordist.app/hr. There’s no referral reward; tell them only if it would help them.