Why creating a robust interviewing skills training for your company’s hiring managers will help you to raise the bar and build a great team within your organization.

Talent Acquisition has a responsibility regarding the future of a company. As the first step for any business, the better the selection of new joiners is, the more chance for an effective workforce in the future there are. On the contrary, a wrong selection of new joiners will have a negative impact on the business in the long run. 

One of the main challenges in today’s market is that appropriate candidates for your business will have many alternative – and equally or more attractive – options to take into consideration before choosing their next workplace. Now more than ever, attraction and sourcing require significant time and resources and tools investment. As companies are dealing with high turnover and low acceptance rates, a robust interview training program is essential. 

The responsibilities of a talent acquisition team don’t stop at sourcing, attracting and hiring strong potential candidates. Providing training and guidance to those involved in the selection process, such as hiring managers, is a crucial part of the job. Interview training for hiring managers directly feeds into acquisition as well as retention of talent and is fundamental to improving a company’s acceptance rates and quality of  hires.

When it comes to building an impactful hiring managers’ training, you should first assess what the two main goals of interviews are.

• Effective assessment: evaluating potential hires that will fit into a high performance culture and your company’s environment
• Candidate experience: creating a great candidate experience for them to showcase your genuine interest

Then you should base your program on a strong foundation:

• Providing context: a training program is a win-win game. Before kicking-off the process and requiring the time and commitment of your hiring managers, you need to expose them to the importance and benefits of good interviewing to the growth and performance of their teams. 
• Peer support: at this stage, the Talent team acts as a knowledgeable Talent Acquisition Business Partner working together with each hiring manager to support their development in interviewing, at every step of the process. Providing personalized, constant feedback and recommendations at every stage of the training is crucial to its success. 
• Materials and on-going updates: providing learning materials in line with their progression is useful, especially after the completion of the first, basic training. Periodic communications about new practices and required adaptations will keep you ahead of the game. A re-evaluation at a later stage will also help you to maintain long-term quality. 

With these principles in mind, at Dialectica we have built a robust training program for hiring managers – piloted in the Americas region – which is divided into different phases to allow progressive learning. Some of its main elements are: courses, brief exercises and shadowing interviews tapping into the importance of good interviewing and providing examples on how to conduct case study interviews, while validating a candidate’s suitability to the role and to  the organization . What we also ensure is that fun and smart learning methods are always in the mix! 

Often overlooked, interviewer training cannot be missing from any Talent Acquisition teams agenda. When organizations get their interviewing process right, there’s an invaluable payoff. A well-structured interview process leaves candidates with a positive impression of your company and enables your team to attract top talent.

The secret is to never forget that becoming an effective interviewer is a non-stop journey. Markets evolve, supply and demands change, and candidate behavior is shifting. It’s up to any Talent Acquisition team – and company – to adapt, by  informing, educating and providing ongoing guidance to their hiring managers. 

Interested in joining #teamDialectica and kicking off your career with us? Visit our Careers page to find all our current job openings in Montreal, Vancouver, London and Athens.