`titrebWhat are appraisal interviews used for in the human resources management of universities administrative staff?`/titrebIn 2007, the law on the freedoms and responsibilities of universities aimed to strengthen the autonomy of French universities. More than ten years later, to what extent can we consider that universities manage their human resources autonomously? To discuss this, we propose to study how appraisal interview of universities’ administrative and technical staff are conducted. The article shows that from its conception to its use by the human resources management, appraisal interview reveals different paradoxes as well as it accounts on the real (limited) autonomy of the French universities in the issue.