5 Steps to Effective Interviewer Training

Every company wants to make the best hiring decisions. But too many don't invest in a key part of that process - interviewer training. Too often, interviews are inconsistent, with unstructured questions and decisions based on gut feelings instead of real insights. The good news? Training your team to run more effective interviews might take effort, but it isn't complicated. Let's see how you can take 5 steps to improve your processes.

Step 1: Define the Key Competencies for Interviewers

Before starting interviewer training, it is important to define what qualities and skills you want in your interviewers, and how these align with your company's hiring goals.

1.1 Understanding what qualities makes an effective interviewer

An effective interviewer is more than just a question-asker - they'll also have these key qualities:

• Active Listening – Great interviewers truly listen to candidate's responses, picking up on details and asking thoughtful follow-ups.

• Emotional Intelligence (EQ) – Understanding a candidate’s emotions, reactions, and motivations can help interviewers see how well they will fit into a team.

• Clear Communication – An effective interviewer knows how to ask concise, relevant questions and create a comfortable environment where candidates can showcase their best selves.

1.2 Essential skills for interviewers

Alongside the qualities listed above, the best interviewers will also have these key skills:

• Objective Decision-Making – Good interviewers will rely on well structured criteria like scorecards, rather than gut feelings or first impressions, and will stay fair and consistent in their evaluations.

• Probing and Follow-Up Questioning – Strong interviewers don’t just accept surface-level answers - they dig deeper to get a clearer picture of a candidate’s experience, problem-solving ability, and thought process.

• Time Management – This skill allows interviewers to keep interviews on track, ensuring all key topics are covered without rushing or dragging out the conversation unnecessarily.

1.3 Aligning competencies with company hiring goals

Aligning interviewer competencies with company hiring goals is essential before you begin training. Here's how you achieve this:

1. Identify Your Company's Objectives: Understand where your company wants to go and the type of talent it needs to get there.

2. Map Interviewer Competencies to Your Objectives: Identify what competencies in your interviewers are necessary for them to make hiring decisions that align with your objectives. For example, if your company is looking to launch more technical projects, you will want your interviewers to be able to conduct high quality technical interviews.

3. Training and Evaluation: Regularly evaluate and train interviewers based on these aligned competencies. Use interviewing tools such as Evidenced to simulate interviews and offer targeted training.

Tip: Set up periodic reviews of your hiring process to ensure that interviewer competencies remain aligned with evolving company goals.

Step 2: Run Practical Workshops

The best way for interviewers to learn is to practice, so once you know the skills and qualities you are looking to foster in your interviewers, you should move quickly into practical sessions.

2.1 Conducting mock interviews and role-playing exercises

Regularly conducting mock interviews is a crucial element in practice-based learning for interviewers, as they provide a safe environment to rehearse real-life scenarios without the pressure of real consequences. These exercises are especially beneficial for understanding timing and pacing, as interviewers can practice managing intricate conversations within set time limits. Moreover, mock interviews let you pinpoint non-verbal cues and refine active listening skills.

Role-playing exercises also allow interviewers to step into the shoes of candidates, offering valuable insights into the candidate’s perspective, helping interviewers empathise and guide a more candidate-friendly process. Consider rotating roles in these exercises to foster a comprehensive understanding of different interview dynamics. Remember to incorporate feedback sessions after each mock interview or role-play - constructive criticism helps interviewers refine their skills effectively.

2.2 Teaching behavioural and competency-based interview techniques

Behavioural interview techniques require interviewers to focus on past behaviours of candidates, that will hopefully be indicative of future performance. Training sessions can concentrate on the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) method, although there are many other alternatives, as it offers a structured approach for eliciting clear, concise responses. This method also assists interviewers in delving deeper into candidate experiences, looking beyond superficial responses.

Competency-based or skills-based interviews centre around specific skills necessary for the role. It's critical that interviewers have prior practice questioning candidates on the skills they will be evaluating for, which might include problem-solving, leadership, or adaptability. Using real-world scenarios within the training helps bridge the gap between theory and practice for interviewers.

2.3 Using real-life scenarios for practical learning

Utilising real-life scenarios during workshops enriches the learning experience by grounding abstract concepts in tangible examples. Moreover, providing case studies related to the roles you're hiring for enhances interviewers' ability to understand candidate narratives. Facilitators can present these scenarios to your interviewers, enabling them to debate and discuss the best approaches to questioning and assessment.

Interactive discussions following such exercises promote critical reflection, enabling interviewers to connect theory with practical applications. Sharing varied perspectives and solutions also fosters an environment of collaborative learning, critical for honing interviewing expertise in line with industry standards.

Tip: Document scenarios and share outcomes from workshop sessions to create a resource bank, as it can become an invaluable tool for continuous improvement and a reference for new interviewers joining the team.

Step 3: Provide Real Time Guidance

Once your interviewers have had practice, it's time to start thinking about how you'll support them during real interviews. Consider implementing these processes:

3.1 Offer shadow interviewing

Shadow interviewing adds a practical dimension to interviewer training, allowing less experienced team members to learn from seasoned pros in real time. This method includes observing initial interviews and then gradually participating under supervision.

For best results, rotate shadowing opportunities across different departments to diversify the skills learned. Remember to implement a feedback session post-shadow interview to discuss observations and lessons. This reflects real-world challenges and provides immediate practice of new interviewer's objective decision making.

Tip: Use virtual shadowing options provided by tools like Evidenced, as they enable new interviewers to review past interviews on their schedule. It also allows new interviewers to practice making objective decisions, without influence from the primary interviewer.

3.2 Creating structured interview guidance

The best way to provide real time guidance to your interviewers is to ensure that they have the tools to run well-structured interviews. Interviewing with structured guidelines means that not only will your interviewers be confident that they're asking the right questions, they'll be able to better time and evaluate their interviews.

Using tools like Evidenced you can quickly build best-in-class templates from our question library, and break interviews down into timed sections, so your team can spend the right amount of time assessing each competency, with automatic question prompting and bookmarking.

Without Evidenced you will need to manually build your structured guidance by:

• Identifying critical skills and competencies relevant to each role.

• Developing questions that assess these competencies.

• Providing individual documentation to each interviewer for each role.

• Incorporating scoring criteria - each question should relate directly to a competency, making it easier for interviewers to rate responses consistently.

• Tracking individual interviewers to ensure they are asking the right questions.

3.3 Developing a consistent scoring system

A consistent scoring system transforms subjective opinions into objective assessments, enabling fairer hiring decisions, and guiding your interviewers in making objective decisions. Without a standardised approach, you risk inconsistency and bias creeping into new interviewer's decisions, especially if they are on a panel and are prone to following a group decision. To devise a solid system, ensure your scoring criteria reflect the competencies and skills outlined for each role. Each criterion should correspond to clear performance indicators, leading to objective candidate evaluations.

Here’s how you can develop a scoring system that guides interviewers:

1. Define scoring scales: Whether a five-point or ten-point scale, ensure everyone knows what's expected at each level.

2. Link scores to examples: Offer examples of responses that would warrant high, medium, and low scores. Evidenced can aid by providing sample responses from previous interviews.

3. Train your team: Make sure your interviewers are adept at applying the scoring system.

Tip: Regularly review and tweak scoring systems based on feedback and outcomes. A data-driven approach ensures continual improvement and alignment with actual role performance.

Step 4: Implement Feedback and Continuous Improvement

4.1 Gathering feedback from candidates and hiring teams

Collecting robust feedback after interviews is crucial for refining your interviewer training and enhancing candidate experience. Start by employing simple post-interview surveys - by using a platform like Evidenced, you can gather unbiased candidate feedback after every interview and achieve industry-leading participation rates.

From the hiring team's perspective, encourage a two-way feedback loop. Hold short debrief sessions with interviewers soon after the interview. Discuss what went well and what areas need improvement. This direct exchange not only highlights recurring themes but also helps adjust interviewer training for better alignment with company values.

4.2 Using post-interview debriefs to assess interviewer performance

Regular debriefs are essential for assessing and elevating interviewer performance. Post-interview meetings should be structured to discuss interviewer strengths and areas for development, especially if they're new to interviewing. Focus on specific interactions, asking the team to provide concrete examples of effective questioning or potential bias. You can deploy performance dashboards available through platforms such as Evidenced to convert qualitative feedback into actionable insights and see which interviewers require targeted training.

4.3 Offering ongoing coaching and refresher courses

Continuous learning should be a core component of your interviewer training strategy. Try creating a schedule of quarterly coaching sessions, focusing on both technical and soft skills required for effective interviewing. Tailor these sessions to address common feedback themes, and make use of internal experts to keep costs low.

You can also incorporate refresher courses aligned with industry best practices. Topics could include unconscious bias or advanced questioning techniques. Practical workshops simulating real-world scenarios help solidify these new skills, ensuring your team remains at the cutting edge of talent acquisition.

Tip: Record these sessions and make them available online for asynchronous learning, ensuring all staff have equal access to training resources.

Step 5: Leverage Data

5.1 Using interview intelligence to enhance interviewer training

Utilising interview intelligence tools can significantly boost the effectiveness of your interviewer training - when you leverage data, you gain insights into interview dynamics and performance. This data-driven approach empowers you to refine training materials and tailor them to address specific gaps in skills.

Evidenced offers unique features such as realtime interviewer insights, so you can see at a glance how your team are performing, look for outliers and target your coaching and training in the right places. You can also get notified when performance dips, such as an increase in time-to-decision, or a candidate left waiting too long, so you can quickly act and rectify the issue, allowing you do make truly data-driven improvements at all levels of hiring.

5.2 Tracking success metrics to measure improvements

Measuring interviewer success is crucial to ensure that your training efforts yield results. Defining clear metrics helps track interviewer improvements over time. This could include evaluating:

• Time-to-hire

• Time-to-decision

• Promptness

• Candidate feedback scores

• Retention rate of successful hires.

Evidenced enhances this by offering post-interview surveys, capturing unbiased candidate feedback, ensuring you obtain concrete data on the interview experience, helping in continuously improving your process. By aligning data analytics with your company's goals, you can build a competent interviewer team capable of making informed and equitable hiring decisions.

Ultimately, effective interviewer training isn’t just about improving individual skills - it’s about creating a structured, consistent, and fair hiring process that leads to better talent decisions. By defining key competencies, running practical workshops, offering real-time guidance, implementing feedback loops, and leveraging data, your organisation can build a team of confident, well-prepared interviewers. Investing in interviewer training today means making smarter, more strategic hiring decisions for the future.