Planning & Conducting a Job Interview

3-Day Intensive Course for Hiring Managers, Recruiters & Team Leads
3 Intense Days
7 Hours per Day (Split into two 3.5-hour sessions)

 Learning Path Visual

From awkward questions to confident, effective hiring conversations:

Day 1: Interview Planning & Competency Mapping
Understand the purpose of the interview in the hiring process. Define what you’re hiring for using a structured competency map. Learn to plan interviews that are fair, inclusive, and aligned with business needs.

Day 2: Asking Better Questions & Managing the Conversation
Learn the art and science of behavioral questions. Practice guiding the conversation without leading. Use structured evaluation tools and learn techniques for digging deeper, identifying red flags, and staying legally compliant.

Day 3: Evaluation, Decision-Making & Practice Interviews
Learn how to assess responses using scorecards and structured criteria. Avoid common biases. Run mock interviews with peer feedback and analyze performance. Leave ready to hire with purpose, fairness, and clarity.

Course Overview

Hiring the right person starts with asking the right questions — in the right way. This 3-day course equips you with the strategy, structure, and soft skills to plan and conduct job interviews that are legally sound, behaviorally informed, and candidate-friendly.

You’ll gain practical frameworks, ready-to-use templates, and live interview practice, ensuring your next hire is driven by clarity and consistency — not guesswork or bias.

You’ll learn how to:

• Define role-based competencies and translate them into interview goals

• Design behavioral and situational questions that reveal real experience

• Structure your interviews for flow, consistency, and insight

• Avoid illegal or inappropriate questions

• Take effective notes and use scorecards for fairness

• Detect red flags and probe constructively

• Confidently run interviews and evaluate candidates with others

What’s Inside Each Day

Day 1 — Interview Planning & Competency Mapping

• Defining your hiring goal: skills vs. culture vs. role fit

• Building a competency map aligned with job requirements

• Types of interviews: structured, semi-structured, unstructured

• Reducing bias through planning and preparation

• Interview logistics and candidate experience tips

• Workshop: Create an interview plan for a real position
  Tool: Interview planning worksheet + competency map template
  Focus: Structure • Role Alignment • Fairness

Day 2 — Asking Better Questions & Managing the Conversation

• Writing behavioral questions using the STAR method

• Avoiding yes/no, leading, and legally risky questions

• Probing techniques: follow-ups, silence, redirection

• Managing talkative or quiet candidates

• Building a balance of technical and soft skill assessments

• Workshop: Design question sets and run mini interviews
  Tool: Behavioral question bank + legal risk checklist
  Focus: Conversation Design • Compliance • Depth

Day 3 — Evaluation, Decision-Making & Practice Interviews

• Using scorecards and rubrics to fairly evaluate answers

• Detecting red flags and inconsistencies

• Dealing with bias: halo effect, similarity bias, anchoring

• Running debrief meetings and comparing notes

• Mock interviews: Run and observe with peer feedback

• Workshop: Complete a structured hiring cycle simulation
  Tool: Interview scorecard template + feedback form
  Focus: Evaluation • Bias Reduction • Interview Mastery

 Course Goals

By the end of this course, you’ll be able to:

• Plan and structure interviews with strategic clarity

• Ask questions that surface relevant, measurable insights

• Lead fair, focused, and legally compliant interviews

• Use evaluation tools to compare candidates objectively

• Make better hiring decisions — faster and with confidence

Who Should Take This Course?

• Team leads conducting interviews for internal hires

• Startup founders building first teams

• HR professionals and recruiters developing interview guides

• Managers seeking to improve hiring outcomes

• Anyone participating in candidate interviews or panels

Class Reference: HIRE/ENG
Form Updated on: 06/19/2025 (Version 1)
Last Modified on: 06/19/2025

Program Note
Participants will receive downloadable templates for interview planning, competency maps, scorecards, behavioral questions, and a complete post-interview decision-making toolkit