1. Interviewer Training - Overview & Key Concepts

Last updated: February 26, 2026

TL;DR: GoodTime Interviewer Training helps you grow a consistent, high-quality interviewer pool by automatically managing trainees, scheduling shadow/reverse-shadow sessions, and tracking progress to graduation – all from within your normal scheduling workflow.

Interviewer Training in GoodTime extends our existing and proven scheduling algorithm, used to connect candidates with interviewers, and adds the ability to automatically include trainees in upcoming interviews. GoodTime's Interviewer Training features ensures that every trainee becomes qualified, confident, and consistent before being labelled as qualified to host interviews on their own. Instead of tracking shadows and reverse-shadows manually in spreadsheets, GoodTime automates the entire process end-to-end; from assigning trainees to the right interviews, to collecting feedback, to awarding the correct interviewer tags at graduation.
 

What is Interviewer Training?

Interviewer Training is a set of tools in GoodTime that lets you:

  • Define training paths (recipes of classes like theory/reading classes, shadows and reverse shadows). 
  • Enroll trainees (employees learning to interview). 
  • Automatically add trainees to relevant interviews. 
  • Collect feedback on readiness when needed. 
  • Graduate trainees and award them a tag so they can be scheduled as full interviewers. 

Once set up, Interviewer Training removes spreadsheets and manual tracking and turns your training into a repeatable, auditable process.


Why use Interviewer Training?

Teams use Interviewer Training to:

  • Decrease lead time: With more qualified interviewers in each tag group, it’s easier to find a time on the first try. GoodTime data shows that with 5+ trained interviewers in a tag group, candidates have ~95% chance of booking in their first scheduling interaction.   
  • Standardize interviewer quality: Trainees go through a consistent, documented training path. 
  • Reduce interviewer burnout: More trained interviewers = less load on a few “go-to” people. 
  • Improve DEI & candidate experience: Grow diverse, well-prepared interviewer pools. 
  • Centralize training data: See who is in training, who has graduated, and where bottlenecks exist.

 

Key Concepts & Definitions:

As you start to use GoodTime's Interviewer Training features it is useful to understand these following key terms and use them consistently across your org:

  • Tag 
    A label assigned to an interviewer that represents a skill or qualification they hold, e.g. Python L3, Behavioral, Sales Presentation. Tags are what you graduate trainees into and what interview templates use to define which interviewers are eligible.   
    See: Tags - Advanced Tags
  • Interview Template 
    A saved schedule structure for a role or stage (e.g. Senior Java Engineer – Virtual Onsite). Templates define: 
    • The events/panels in the interview. 
    • Which tags/interviewer pools can host each event.   
  • Training Path 
    The “recipe” for training. A path defines: 
    • Which classes (reading, shadows, reverse shadows) are required. 
    • Which interview events the trainee can be added to. 
    • Which tag(s) to award (and optionally remove) on graduation.  
  • Class 
    A single training instance in a path. Common types: 
    • Reading class: a theory/pre-work module. 
    • Shadow: trainee observes a trained interviewer host a live interview. 
    • Reverse shadow: trainee leads a live interview; experienced interviewer evaluates.  
  • Trainee 
    An employee currently going through training to become a qualified interviewer. Trainees move between statuses: In Training → Completed → Graduated.   

 

How the pieces fit together

At a high level, the lifecycle looks like this:

  1. Define tags 
    Decide which skill tags represent “fully trained” interviewers for each role or interview type. 
  2. Prepare interview templates 
    Make sure the templates you schedule from: 
    - Have clear, descriptive event names. 
    - Use tags to define which interviewers can host each event.   
  3. Build training paths 
    For each tag or interview type, create a path with: 
    - Required classes (reading, shadows, reverse shadows). 
    - Linked templates/events where trainees will join.   
  4. Enroll trainees 
    Add employees to paths manually or via Auto-Enroll rules based on tags/tenure.   
  5. Schedule trainees 
    - Automatically during normal scheduling (graduation-cap UI on linked templates). 
    - Or from the trainee’s profile via Schedule Class.   
  6. Collect feedback (optional) 
    - Use Training Feedback Automation to gather “Move Forward” vs “Needs Retraining” votes from interviewers after key classes.   
  7. Graduate (& tag) 
    Once a trainee finishes their classes and/or passes feedback rules: 
    - Mark them as Graduated. 
    - GoodTime applies graduation tags and optionally enrolls them into the next path.   

 

☑ Implementation Checklist:

Use this as a quick “getting started” roadmap:

  1. ☑ Identify 1–2 high-impact roles to start with (e.g. Backend Coding, Sales Discovery).   
  2. ☑ Define or clean up the tags you want trainees to graduate into. 
  3. ☑ Review related interview templates and ensure events & interviewer tags are clearly defined. 
  4. ☑ Create training paths and link them to the correct templates & events. 
  5. ☑ Enroll a small pilot group of trainees (e.g. 3–5 per path). 
  6. ☑ Schedule them through real candidates and refine: 
    - Class counts (e.g. # of shadows). 
    - Feedback automation rules. 
  7. ☑ Expand to more roles once the process feels smooth.