According to a Leadership IQ study cited by SHRM Labs, 46% of new hires fail within their first 18 months—not because of skills gaps, but because of values and behavioral mismatches that a well-structured interview process could have caught. The same research finds that behavior-based hiring raises the probability of a successful hire to between 80% and 90%. Yet most organizations still rely on instinct, polish and vague impressions of “culture fit” to make decisions that carry enormous human and financial consequences.
Values-based interviewing structures candidate conversations around observable behavioral evidence of core organizational values—not gut feelings or whether someone seems like a good fit. When done well, it reduces costly turnover, mitigates bias and builds more cohesive, high-performing teams. Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank—a curated community of senior HR leaders, practitioners and consultants—offer their most effective approaches to closing this gap, and translating values from posters into practice.
“Most hiring managers are evaluating the wrong thing. They listen for polish. Values-based interviewing listens for evidence.”
The Gap Between What Candidates Say and What They’ve Done
The first challenge in training hiring managers, says Aida Figuerola, a neuropsychologist at Lift, is getting them to stop listening for polish and start listening for evidence.
“Most hiring managers are evaluating the wrong thing,” Figuerola says. “They listen for polish. Values-based interviewing listens for evidence.” A large number of bad hires stem from values mismatches—not skills failures—and the cost of that error is steep.
Figuerola’s framework cuts through the noise with a straightforward shift in question design. Rather than asking “Are you collaborative?”—a question any candidate can answer correctly—she recommends asking, “Tell me about a time your team disagreed. What did you do?” The follow-up analysis matters just as much as the answer itself. Managers should listen for specificity (Vague responses signal a lack of real experience), agency versus blame (Does the candidate own the situation or deflect?) and consistency between the story and the candidate’s tone.
She describes what she calls the “lie detector moment”: A candidate declares, “I always value transparency.” The trained interviewer responds immediately: “Tell me exactly what you said when you had to share bad news.” A generic or evasive answer is a red flag. “The gap between what people say they value and what they did under pressure—that’s where character lives,” Figuerola says. “No fluff. No gut feelings. Just behavioral evidence.”
For hiring managers, the implication is a single guiding rule: Never accept a declaration of values as evidence of values. Require the story.
Make Values Measurable—and Keep Calibrating
If Figuerola focuses on the quality of questions, Tyler Crebar, Founder and CEO of Crebar Career Consulting, focuses on the infrastructure that supports them. Crebar Career Consulting helps mid-career to executive professionals navigate career transitions and strategic job searches, and Crebar’s background in recruiting across finance, technology, healthcare and higher education gives him a clear view of where organizational training efforts typically break down.
“I like to take a less complicated approach when it comes to training hiring managers on values-based interviewing,” Crebar says. “In my experience as a recruiter, it’s making those values measurable.” His framework includes defining what each organizational value looks like as observable behavior, standardizing interview questions tied to specific values, using scoring rubrics and practicing through mock interviews.
“What has worked well is defining what each value looks like in behavior, standardizing interview questions tied to specific values, using scoring rubrics, practicing with mock interviews and reviewing past hiring outcomes,” he adds. But the element most organizations miss, Crebar emphasizes, is continuity. “The part that organizations miss often is they do a one-time training, when it should be continuous calibration and revisiting of expectations.”
Research backs him up: A September 2025 USA Today analysis found that culture-fit hiring consistently backfires, reinforcing the case for a structured, values-measurable approach. A single onboarding session on values-based interviewing is table stakes—not a solution. Treating it as an ongoing practice, tied to real hiring data, is what separates organizations that consistently hire well from those that repeat the same mistakes.
“Managers need to understand the difference between values alignment and simply hiring people who think or act as they do.”
Practical Over Theoretical: Making the Interview Room a Values Experience
Nicole Cable, Chief People and Experience Officer at C3 Health, brings more than two decades of executive leadership across healthcare, hospitality and customer-centric organizations to this question. C3 Health partners with healthcare providers to deliver integrated care solutions that improve patient outcomes and financial performance—and Cable’s work there reflects a consistent philosophy: move past theory and into practice.
“One of the most effective ways to train hiring managers on values-based interviewing is to move beyond theory and make it practical,” Cable says. “Too often, organizations hand leaders a list of values but never teach them what those values actually sound or look like in an interview.” The solution, she notes, requires a combination of real examples, behavior-based questions, role-play and calibration conversations designed to reduce bias and improve consistency.
Cable also draws a sharp distinction that often gets muddied in practice. “Managers need to understand the difference between values alignment and simply hiring people who think or act as they do,” she says. “Values-based interviewing should not be about hiring for sameness or ‘culture fit.’ It should be about identifying people who can contribute to the culture while aligning with the organization’s core behaviors and expectations.”
Her final point reframes the interview itself. “It is also important to remind hiring managers that interviews are not interrogations. Candidates are evaluating the organization too. The experience should reflect the values being discussed.” How a company conducts its interviews is itself a signal of what it values—and candidates are paying close attention.
Train for Trade-offs, Not Talking Points
Volen Vulkov, co-founder of Enhancv, an AI-powered resume platform whose tools have been featured in Forbes, HubSpot and Business Insider, offers a counterintuitive take: Stop trying to identify values directly in interviews altogether.
“Trying to teach hiring recruiters how to identify values during an interview is a common error,” Vulkov says. “Values can be faked efficiently for approximately 45 minutes.” The implication is significant—traditional values screening, if it relies on candidates discussing their values in the abstract, is largely unreliable.
Instead, Vulkov recommends a more diagnostic approach. “Train them to identify patterns in the candidate’s previous trade-offs,” he says, “by finding out what the candidate did or did not sacrifice and what did or did not get pushed back on by the candidate.” The distinction between stated values and demonstrated values is observable only under pressure. “Only when something was at stake will the value be observable,” Vulkov adds.
For hiring managers, this reframes the entire conversation. Rather than asking candidates to describe their values, the most revealing questions ask candidates to describe decisions they made when two competing priorities collided. The sacrifices a person has made—and those they refused to make—tell the real story.
Scorecards, Shadowing and Retrospective Review
Dr. Jonathan H. Westover, Educator, Futurist, Entrepreneur, Associate Dean of Western Governors University, Founder and CEO of Human Capital Innovations and Chief Workforce and Learning Officer of Future State University, brings a practitioner-researcher lens to this topic. Ranked among the top scholars globally for job satisfaction research and recognized as a TopVoice in HR, Innovation and Leadership, Dr. Westover outlines a multi-stage training approach designed to build judgment, not just compliance.
“Start with workshops using real scenarios where managers practice spotting values alignment versus culture fit bias,” Dr. Westover says. The learning process, in his model, is layered: role-play with feedback loops, clear behavioral indicators for each value, example questions tied to those indicators and initial shadowing of experienced interviewers. “Shadow experienced interviewers initially,” he notes.
The structural elements are equally important. “Create scorecards that separate skills from values assessment,” Dr. Westover adds. This prevents the common conflation of capability with character—a distinction that shapes hiring accuracy. The final element is retrospective review: “Review hiring decisions retrospectively to calibrate judgment and address blind spots.” Linking interview scores back to actual performance and retention data over time sharpens a hiring manager’s instincts and keeps training connected to real outcomes.
Stewardship, Certification and the Two-Way Interview
Britton Bloch, VP, Global Talent Acquisition Strategy and Head of Recruiting at Navy Federal Credit Union, one of the largest credit unions in the United States, offers a systemic view rooted in organizational accountability. For Bloch, the framing matters as much as the mechanics.
“Train hiring managers as stewards of values, not interview technicians,” she says. That philosophical shift—from process compliance to genuine stewardship—changes how managers approach the entire interaction. The best training model, in her view, is organization-specific, required and annually recertified, covering structured practice on values-based questions, unconscious bias, candidate experience and capability calibration.
Bloch also emphasizes the importance of meeting candidates where they are. “Leaders must meet people where they are, recognizing diverse intelligences, communication styles and nontraditional paths to competence, while staying anchored to capabilities that meet or exceed preferred requirements,” she says. “Hiring quality depends on decision rights, validation standards, accountability and escalation.”
Like Cable, Bloch insists that the interview is never one-directional. “It is also a two-way interview,” she says. “Every candidate should experience the employer value proposition and leave feeling respected, selected or not. In a digital world, one poor experience can become reputational risk at scale.” The stakes are concrete: “Done well, values-based interviewing protects trust, belonging, fairness and brand.”
“Certify managers before they interview alone: earned access, not assigned.”
Accountability Is the Curriculum
Christopher Bylone, Principal Strategist at Innovation Unbiased—a strategic consultancy that transforms workplace culture through data-driven, people-centered strategies—is direct about where most training programs fail. A former global belonging strategy leader at Krispy Kreme and IFF, Bylone has seen what separates programs that produce results from those that produce slide decks.
“Most values-based interview training fails because it teaches mindset and skips the muscle,” Bylone says. “Mindset is necessary, never sufficient.” The real work, he explains, is unglamorous. Organizations should translate each value into three to five observable behaviors with a rating scale: “Vague values produce vague hires.” Calibration sessions where managers score the same recorded response and debate the gap are essential—”Alignment is built, not assumed”—as are independent scorecards submitted before any group debrief. “Require independent scorecards so each interviewer commits a score before debrief, killing the loudest-voice-wins dynamic,” he says.
Bylone also takes direct aim at the language of “culture fit.” “Retire ‘culture fit’ and replace it with ‘value add,'” he says. “Fit hires for sameness; value add hires for what the team is missing.” Real skill-building, in his model, comes from role-plays and peer review—”reading a deck is not training”—and managers should earn the right to interview independently through certification. “Certify managers before they interview alone: earned access, not assigned.” And the accountability loop should close with data: “Ninety days in, tie interview ratings to retention and performance. Accountability is the curriculum. Everything else is theater.”
Start With the Foundation: Define the Values First
Steve Degnan, Advisor, Board Member and Former CHRO, brings the perspective of 20 years as Chief Human Resources Officer at one of the world’s leading food and pet food companies—a tenure that included stewarding values across large, complex global organizations. His advice is a reminder that training cannot outrun clarity.
“Well-defined values are a good start, with simple communications and credible storytelling to cultivate them,” Degnan says. “If they exist in your company, it will be easier for your managers to interview and screen for them.”
The implication cuts both ways: Without clear, well-communicated values that employees and leaders already understand, no interview training system—however rigorous—can reliably surface alignment. Before the scorecards, the calibration sessions or the certification programs, the organization must do the foundational work of making its values real, specific and lived.
What the Experts Want You to Walk Away With
- Make values observable before you make them testable. Behavioral evidence—not declarations—is what reveals character. Train managers to ask for specific stories, listen for agency and notice where a candidate’s tone diverges from their narrative.
- Make values measurable—and keep calibrating. Defining what each value looks like as observable behavior, standardizing questions, using scoring rubrics and conducting ongoing calibration are what separate rigorous programs from one-time trainings that fade quickly.
- Move from theory to practice, and remember the interview runs both ways. Managers need real examples, role play and calibration conversations—and candidates are always evaluating the organization, too. How you interview signals what you value.
- Look for trade-offs, not talking points. Values can be performed in a 45-minute conversation; what can’t be faked is a pattern of past decisions. Train managers to identify what candidates have sacrificed—because values only become observable when something is at stake.
- Build scorecards, use shadowing and review outcomes retrospectively. A layered approach combining workshops, behavioral scorecards that separate skills from values and retrospective review tied to actual performance and retention data sharpens judgment over time.
- Train managers as stewards, not technicians, and certify them annually. Organization-specific training that is required and recertified annually ensures accountability—and reputational risk is real when candidates leave a poor interview experience regardless of outcome.
- Accountability is the curriculum; everything else is theater. Real training requires observable behavior ratings, independent scorecards, calibration sessions, role play, certification before solo interviewing and 90-day feedback loops that tie interview scores to retention and performance.
- Lay the foundation before you build the framework. Clearly defined, authentically communicated and credibly told values make everything else possible. Hiring managers cannot screen for what the organization has not yet made real.
The Interviewer Is the Interview
Values-based interviewing is not a checklist. It is a discipline—one that requires clear definitions, consistent practice, structural accountability and ongoing calibration. The Think Tank members featured here agree on a central truth: organizations that invest in training hiring managers to evaluate behavioral evidence rather than surface impressions will hire people who strengthen their culture rather than dilute it.
The gap between what candidates say they value and what the record shows they’ve done is where every hiring decision ultimately lives. Training managers to close that gap—with rigor, empathy and structure—is one of the highest-return investments any HR leader can make.
