How to Build Interviewer Training That Actually Changes Behavior
To our Talent Community,
Over the years, we've worked with dozens of clients to build hiring manager and interviewer trainings. Recently, we wrapped up a client engagement that was different from our usual work.
This client had already built interviewer training, but they knew it needed help to be more engaging and drive actual behavior change. They also wanted to leverage our facilitation expertise to build a train-the-trainer program so their recruiters could confidently deliver the training going forward.
They saw this as both a way to scale interview training effectively and provide professional development for their team. Both opportunities excited us, especially the chance to mentor the existing team to be more effective as training leads.
In the end, we were able to combine GBD’s expertise with the client’s deep understanding of their teams and operating environment. We wrapped the engagement to rave reviews from our stakeholder. Now we want to share the most common pitfalls we see with interview training, as well as how to design training that actually works.
What goes wrong and how to fix it
Mistake #1: Trying to squeeze too much into one training session. For a lot of recruiting teams, especially at growth-stage startups, interviewer training is the only time they get all their interviewers in one room together. We know that feeling of wanting to cover everything. But unfortunately, attendees are not going to leave remembering the dozens of points you tried to make. If you’re lucky, they’ll remember three or four. The more content and different topics you pack in, the more likely they are to tune out.
Solution: Get clear on your goals and outcomes before you start building the training, and then prioritize ruthlessly. When we work with clients to design trainings, we always ask them: what are your learning goals for the engagement? What new habits or behaviors should attendees feel more ready to practice moving forward? We often hear 3-5 distinct changes that clients hope will result from the training.
Then we go one level deeper: If you could make only one change through this training, what would it be? This becomes our north star for designing an effective training. We too have felt the pain of cutting hours of potential content down to essentials—but clear prioritization is exactly what helps attendees focus on what matters most, and this ensures they can actually retain it.
Mistake #2: Assuming interviewers understand the “why.” Many companies jump straight into training content without ever establishing why it matters to each participant. Too much setup upfront can hurt engagement, but leaving out the bigger picture is not the solution. The result can be disengaged learners who see interviewer training as just another mandatory session.
Solution: Lead with purpose. Consider having experienced recruiters, TA leaders, or business leaders facilitate the training—they're uniquely positioned to share real candidate feedback, recent hiring challenges, and specific examples of what great (and not-so-great) interviews look like. Plus, this can be a great way to build rapport between the TA team and new interviewers—before you’re in a debrief with them.
When you have facilitators who live this work daily, they can also make the content immediately relevant. We see great results from weaving in the “why” behind the training throughout the session. Share actual candidate feedback about bad interviews, show data on how interview quality impacts offer acceptance rates, or highlight how better assessment approaches correlate with future employee performance. Real data keeps people engaged because they see the direct impact of their interviewing skills.
Mistake #3: Including too much about the hiring process in a live training. Yes, interviewers need to know how to use your ATS, when to submit a referral, and who to contact if they have to last-minute reschedule an interview, to name just a few things. But if you front-load thirty minutes of detailed process before any skill-building, you've lost the room. This is especially brutal in remote training where you're competing with email, Slack, and every other browser tab. Save process for your LMS or another async learning modality—live time is for building skills that require interaction.
Solution: Balance a focus on skills with interactivity and weave the hiring process in when it’s relevant. Interactivity is one the most important keys when it comes to adult learning. The person leading the training should think of themselves as a facilitator of the attendees’ experience, not a lecturer of information. Research from Harvard shows that people learn significantly more through active learning than lectures, and studies indicate that adults can only maintain focused attention for about 20 minutes in a lecture format. So, instead of lecturing about behavioral questions, have participants practice the STAR method in pairs, using real scenarios from your company. Rather than explaining bias in abstract terms, run a calibration exercise using actual candidate profiles.
Talking about the hiring process has its place in training—just not front-loaded at the beginning or tacked on at the end. Weave it throughout when it's contextually relevant, and be ruthless about moving everything else to your LMS or internal wiki.
Mistake #4: A check-the-box approach to training. We all wish one training could solve every interviewer challenge forever. (If you've cracked this, please share!) We understand why this happens — TA teams are still being asked to do more with less, and many leaders in our community are being asked to build out training programs without extra support, and while juggling eight other high priority initiatives. Luckily, there are small changes to the training approach that can lead to better results long-term.
Solution: Don't just build the training, build the interviewer journey. "Journey" might sound overwhelming but it doesn't have to be—we promise! Focus on two things: measuring success and reinforcement.
For measurement, use surveys before and after the training (and again at 3-6 months) to gauge learning and interviewer confidence, examine candidate feedback for positive trends and impact, and find ways to link interview quality to employee performance data.
For reinforcement, your entire team—TA, hiring managers, and leadership—needs to know what you taught in the training, and then actively reinforce those behaviors. This is how skills become second nature, and how you avoid retraining everyone in twelve months. AI tools can help to identify which interviewers lack calibration and need mentorship, or surface insights about which interview techniques correlate with successful hires. You can then use this information to identify skill gaps, mentor and coach the team, and continuously refine your training to address those gaps.
Building better trainings and leveraging the time you have
Most companies treat interviewer training like a compliance requirement—get everyone in a room, cover the basics, check the box. But the best hiring teams know that great interviewing is a skill requiring intentional development, ongoing practice, and continuous reinforcement. We like to think of training like planting a garden—the initial session plants seeds, but you need ongoing care, watering, and maintenance to see results. That means hiring managers reinforcing best practices in debriefs, TA teams catching and correcting bad habits early and often, and providing continuous practice and mentoring from experienced and calibrated team members.
The shift is simple but powerful. Stop asking, "How do we get this interviewer training done?" and start asking, "How do we build skillful interviewers who consistently deliver great candidate experiences and make better hiring decisions?"
With teams returning to offices and planning off-sites, there's never been a better opportunity to invest in live training. That company retreat? Perfect time for interview calibration exercises. Quarterly business review? Add half an hour to reinforce best practices around writing feedback and participating in debriefs.
When you prioritize ruthlessly, lead with purpose, balance skills with interactivity, and build the full interviewer journey, you're not just training interviewers—you're investing in the foundation of your entire hiring strategy. Ready to move beyond checkbox training? Start with one change from above, measure the impact, and build from there. Your candidates (and your new hires) will thank you.
Feeling overwhelmed? Our training team is always happy to talk.
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Adam, Mike, & Jill with special thanks to Janet Frishberg for her contributions to this month’s newsletter.
🗓️ Upcoming Events:
RecOps Con (October 9-10, 2025 | Chicago, IL) Join your talent industry peers for inspiring talks, hands-on workshops, and actionable insights – all designed to propel our industry forward together.
Register here for a 15% discount!
✨ Placement Highlight:
Sophia Han joined General Catalyst as their VP, Talent!
🎧 Podcast Highlight: Behind the Growth
We're launching something special next Wednesday, September 3 – a podcast where emerging talent leaders get behind-the-curtain access to real career stories from industry architects at LinkedIn, Meta, Stripe, Anthropic, and beyond.
These are intimate conversations about the pivots, mistakes, and frameworks that shaped the talent leaders that we admire today. Think of it as eavesdropping on the kind of coffee chat where folks share the career-defining moments that usually stay private – now available for our entire talent community.
Subscribe now on apple and spotify
🚀 August Leadership Moves in the Market:
Greg Troxell, former Head of Talent at Midi Health, joined Function Health as Director of Talent Acquisition.
Kim Greenia, former Director, Talent Acquisition at Pure Storage, joined Proofpoint as Director of Talent Acquisition.
Neko Sombrio, former Director of Talent Acquisition & HR Technology at PTR Premier Truck Rental, joined Lumana as their Head of Talent.
Dana Dillard, former Director, Recruiting and Talent at Collective Health, joined Zoox as their Director, Talent Acquisition.
Sarah McDonald, former Director at Daversa Partners, joined General Catalyst as their Talent Partner for Health Assurance.
Jerry Sastri, former member of Talent Acquisition at Airbnb, joined Dartiku as their G&A Talent Acquisition Manager.
Yuichi Kurosawa, joined the Talent team at Threshold Ventures.
Jessica Andrelevich, former Senior Manager, Recruitment GTM and G&A, joined Anthropic as Talent Applied AI.
Allie Rubenstein, former Research Operations Program Lead at Asana, joined Autotech Ventures as their Head of Talent.
Rita MacMartin, former Sr. Director, Head of Talent Acquisition at Skyryse, joined True Anomaly as their Head of Talent Acquisition.
Sarah Jambor Keller, former Staff Recruiter at V3 Talent Partners Inc., joined Additive as their Head of Talent.
Christine Oliver, former Sr Director, Tech Recruiting at Meta, joined Atlassian as Head of Recruiting, R&D.
Henry Hippely, former Head of Talent at Lumos, joined OpenAI as a member of the recruiting staff.
Doug Parker, former Global Head of Talent Acquisition, joined Linear as their Head of Talent.
Luke Eaton, former Head of Recruitment at Matter Labs, joined Ava Labs as their Director of Recruiting.
Katie Frazier Campbell, former Vice President, Executive Search, joined Upstart as their Staff Recruiter.
Adam Watson, former Recruitment Program Lead at TikTok, joined Smartly as their Global Talent Acquisition Lead - Commercial.
Colleen Neary, former Head of Talent Acquisition at Unified Vision, joined ElevenLabs’ Talent Team.
Brad Delaplane, former Principal, Head of GTM Talent at ICONIQ Capital, joined NU Advisory Partners as their Associate Partner.
Sophie Tung, former Business Recruiting Lead at CoinTracker, joined Resolve AI as their Founding GTM Recruiter.
Meghan Langill joined Arketa full time as their Head of Talent.
Kameron Swinton, former Head of Talent Acquisition at Cruise, joined Diligent Robotics as their Head of Talent.
Evan Waldera, former Sr Recruiter at HashiCorp, joined Nutrafol as their Manager, Talent Acquisition.
Mark Bowen, former Director, GTM Recruiting at Gong, joined Motive as their Senior Director, Global Sales Recruiting.
Daniel Yang, former Recruiting Manager at NetEase Games, joined the Talent Team at Decagon.
Elizabeth Black, former Vice President of Talent Strategy / Acquisition at Ontra, joined Teamworks as their Vice President, Talent Acquisition.
Cristin Rigney, former Global Head of University Recruiting and Programs, joined Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies as their Senior Manager of University Recruiting.
Maren McMullan, former Senior Product Manager, Employee Experience at Uber, joined Netflix as their Product Manager, Talent Technology.
Corey Twitty, former Director, Global Emerging Talent at Netflix, joined Zillow as Director of Executive Search
Brian Jacobsen, former Head of Global Talent Acquisition and Executive Leadership Hiring at Sumo Logic, joined Halcyon as VP of Global Talent Acquisition.
Did we miss your career change? Let us know: hello@gbdtalent.com
📖 What We’re Reading & Listening to:
Brian Chesky's secret mentor who died 9 times, started the Burning Man board, and built the world's first midlife wisdom school | Chip Conley (founder of MEA) - Lenny’s podcast
Walmart exec shares the ultimate red flag she sees in employees: 'Nobody' will want to hire you - CNBC
Happy Friction - Molly Graham, The Glue Club
How to evaluate your ATS - The RecOps group
Winston Goes to Walldorf: SAP Acquires SmartRecruiters’ AI and Ambition - Matt Charney, Snark Attack
Zapier builds an AI-first remote culture with Claude for Enterprise - Anthropic
Ashby One 2025 content - Benjamin Encz, Ashby
What startups can learn from Anthropic's 80% talent retention rate - SignalFire
HR’s role in AI transformation: A playbook for HR leaders - Workflow by ServiceNow
Why Talent Acquisition Can Drive An HR Revolution - Recruiting Future podcast with Matt Alder
The State of AI in Business 2025 - Mit Nanda
Coinbase’s Greg Garrison on building a 10x talent culture - Metaview
Why Talent Acquisition Can Drive An HR Revolution - Recruiting Future with Matt Alder
📚 Playbooks:
Your Guide to Evaluating and Selecting an ATS: A guide with helpful process frameworks, and evaluation templates to help you make an informed decision about selecting the ATS that is the best fit for your company.
Navigating an IPO: A guide to help you navigate your team through the IPO process. It includes tools and tactics to prepare your team, proactively communicate to pending candidates, and evolve your recruiting operations to support the shift in business.
Credit for the preview/thumbnail image: Redd Fransisco, Unsplash