Hiring Insights for Talent Acquisition Leaders: Interview Training

Based on findings from the HRWins and Greenhouse Workplace Intelligence Report

On behalf of the HCM industry, many thanks to George Larocque, the mastermind of HRWins and the Workplace Intelligence Report, and to Greenhouse for making this thought-provoking report possible. 

At Verified First, we found it incredibly difficult to select what we wanted to dig into more as a finding from this report, because we find so much of it highly relevant and fantastically valuable. We chose to focus on a report finding that we’ve heard from our own clients they struggle with.  

ACTION: Give HR the tools they need to hire and retain employees.

“We aren’t preparing managers to be good at hiring and retaining their teams,” concludes The Workplace Intelligence Report (pg. 72). In fact, LaRocque’s survey data shows that only 38% of survey respondents in the U.S. received training from their organization on how to interview (pg. 73). 

Organizations need to put as much focus and energy into the tactics and flawless execution of the hiring process, as they do the higher-level, strategic hiring initiatives. Allowing employees without the appropriate training to interview candidates is putting your organization at risk—risk to a potential lawsuit for asking discriminatory questions, risk to losing a top quality candidate to your competitor, risk to not meeting your hiring goals.

Now you might think the rest of this blog is about how to conduct an interview—nope, as interviewing depends on the hiring organization, the role and level they’re hiring for, the industry, the culture, and so on. Instead, we’re going to chat about what this report illustrates, that 62% of survey respondents do not receive training on how to interview candidates, and how you can immediately take steps to change that. 

Interview training best practices: 

1. Be sure to cover what not to ask. We cannot stress this enough! As an interviewer, you are not to ask questions to a candidate about their race, color, religion, sex including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy; national orgin, age, disability, or genetic information. (EEOC Prohibited Employment Policies/Practices: Application and Hiring)
2. Content is king. 
   • Hiring must be compliant, so consider leveraging training and materials offered by the EEOC.
   • Ensure the training can be consumed easily and in an engaging way. To increase the likelihood that the tips and guidelines conveyed are put into practice, create dynamic content, with audio and visuals. For example, mock interviews that can be viewed on-demand.
3. Timing is queen. Conduct training at the right time. Much of the training that takes place in organizations tends to be ‘one-and-done’, and too often not part of an upcoming interview schedule. Interview training should occur:
   • Before and near the date of the scheduled interview(s)
   • Reviewed or repeated with the next job opening and in a new month
4. Make it scalable. From content creation to the training process, organizations need to be able to ‘rinse and repeat’. Ensure that the content created can be refreshed easily as time passes. 
5. Make it reportable. Determine whether you want to track if interviewers have consumed the training materials, when, for how long, if they’ve completed the training, and how they’d rank its value. Consider what metrics are easy to track, report on, and most importantly, actionable for change.

Many thanks again to George LaRocque of HRWins and Greenhouse for the Workplace Intelligence Report, to help us all better understand how to serve our audiences better! Download the complete report here.