Interview Skills and Unconscious Bias
Background and Objective
We’re thrilled to partner with Groupe BPCE to create and deliver an exciting one-day course that empowers managers to master interview skills and recognise unconscious bias, creating more effective and inclusive hiring practices!
We did this by raising awareness of bias and building confidence in the practical aspects of interviewing. This group already brought strong experience and openness. Therefore, the focus was on adding tools, insight, and practice to help them feel even more prepared and capable.
Programme Overview
The group shared personal experiences of both good and bad interviews to anchor their learning. Before exploring unconscious bias, they used conversation, exercises, and reflection. Together, they developed practical strategies for building rapport, active listening, and making a warm first impression.
They also practised shaping strong, open questions and structuring interviews effectively. Importantly, they tackled real-world challenges such as how to interrupt or redirect conversations respectfully. Clear takeaways were offered throughout, along with a dedicated post-course page. This page was filled with additional tools and resources to support ongoing development in interview skills and unconscious bias.
Key Content
Throughout the day, we explored:
- Warmth:
- How to create a warm, human and structured interview experience—whether in person or remote.
- Rapport:
- The importance of rapport building, active listening, and reading between the lines.
- Nerves:
- Techniques for managing tricky situations like interviewee nerves or blank moments.
- Facts:
- Where bias can creep in and how to stay grounded in facts
We worked experientially, with space for real examples and self-reflection on interview skills and unconscious bias. This was done alongside practical tools like a sample interview structure, open questioning practice, and a communication toolkit. The toolkit was to aid in making conscious choices in tone, pace and body language.
Desired Outcomes
- Increased self-awareness around bias and assumptions.
- A more confident, human approach to interviews.
- Practical strategies to prepare for and conduct interviews that bring out the best in people.
- A shared understanding across the team of what good looks like.
See What We Can Do For You
If you like what you’ve seen and would like to know more please contact our team.
We want to thank you all for your openness in trying new approaches and for sharing your personal stories during our Interview Skills and Unconscious Bias training. It was truly a pleasure to work with such an engaged and thoughtful group.
Lesley and I thoroughly enjoyed the session and hope you found the training both enjoyable and practical. We aimed to offer useful strategies for putting people at ease and drawing out their best, while also raising awareness of the unconscious biases we all experience.
Your willingness to engage with these topics made the experience especially rewarding for us as trainers.
