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What is a needs template?
Most of what someone needs in order to do their best work or live their best life, never gets stated outright.
A needs template pulls those out. It's a structured document with each need named, explained with context, and anchored with a verbatim quote. It's the document a thoughtful researcher or recruiter would write after sitting with the recording overnight, except with Contented it takes minutes instead of a day.
Contented builds the document directly from the recording, with the quotes drawn straight from the speaker and the needs ordered by emphasis.
How to use a needs template
Record your interview or meeting in the Contented app, pick the needs template, and download a structured synthesis within minutes.
1. Record your conversation
Capture candidate interviews, user research sessions, performance reviews, customer discovery, and coaching conversations in the Contented app.
2. Select the needs template
Choose the needs template from your Contented workspace. Contented works through the recording, identifies the distinct needs running through the conversation, names each one, explains the underlying context, and anchors each with a verbatim quote from the speaker.
3. Review and export
Download as PDF or Word within minutes. Use it as input for a hiring decision, a research finding, a development plan, or a product roadmap.
Who uses a needs template?
Anyone who needs to understand what someone requires in order to succeed in a role, use a product, or move forward in their life.
A few examples:
- Recruiters and hiring managers after candidate interviews, where understanding a candidate's non-negotiables is critical to making the right offer.
- People and HR leads conducting development conversations or performance reviews.
- UX and product researchers running user interviews, where mapping user needs is the foundation for everything that follows in design and prioritisation.
- Customer success teams running discovery callss.
- Coaches and therapists working with clients, where naming needs explicitly is often a key part of the work.
What's in a needs template?
- Distinct needs identified from the conversation, each given a short, descriptive name.
- A short analytical paragraph against each need, explaining the underlying context: why it matters to the person, where it comes from, and what's behind the surface statement.
- A verbatim quote paired with each need, drawn directly from the recording.
- Needs ordered by emphasis so the most strongly held or frequently raised requirements surface first.
- Direct language preserved throughout, so the synthesis stays grounded in what the person said, not how it might be paraphrased later.
- Export-ready as PDF or Word, suitable for the candidate file, research write-up, panel review, or product team handover.
FAQs
Yes, on team plans. We build custom templates that match your organisation's existing formats, branding and terminology. Every document Contented produces is then consistent with what your team already uses, regardless of who created it.
Any conversation, anywhere. Contented can record online, in person, even in your car. No meeting bot required. Capture client meetings, strategy sessions, board meetings, HR discussions, interviews, team catch-ups, conference debriefs, even your long solo musings on the beach.
No. Contented only works with what’s within the recording. It applies structured templates to your transcript rather than generating text from scratch, so there's no room for fabrication. Every output traces back to a speaker or timestamp, and you review and finalise everything before it leaves your team.