The challenge
Hiring for L&D can drift toward familiar titles: trainer, instructional designer, LMS admin. Those titles are useful, but they only reveal part of whether a person can work inside a scaling operating model.
As the team grew, I needed people who could build, review, question, document, and improve the system around the work.
The hiring risk was selecting for presentation polish and missing the deeper signal: how the person thinks when the request is unclear, the stakeholder is impatient, and the quality standard still matters.
The approach
I moved the hiring system toward evidence. Interviews needed structured criteria. Work samples needed to show judgment. Debriefs needed to compare candidates against the same standard.
I also learned to hire for complementarity. A team full of the same kind of strong instructional designer would not have solved LMS operations, content scale, quality, or measurement.
The best hiring conversations tested how candidates handled ambiguity, feedback, tradeoffs, and production constraints.
Downloadable takeaway
A one-page version of the model with the decision questions, sequence, metrics, and red flags someone can use after reading the case.
What I built
Built role profiles around capability
Each role had a clearer purpose in the operating model: design, development, delivery, operations, management, or technology.
That helped reduce vague interviews and made it easier to explain why a candidate was strong for one role and weak for another.
Used work samples and scenario questions
Candidates were asked to diagnose requests, critique learning assets, explain tradeoffs, or walk through how they would manage stakeholder feedback.
This showed thinking under realistic L&D pressure.
Developed managers from the system
Hiring continued after offer acceptance. I coached new managers on decision rights, feedback, performance conversations, and how to hold standards without becoming a bottleneck.
The team needed leadership capacity as much as individual production capacity.
Operating artifacts
These are sanitized work-product examples. They show the kind of artifact I would expect the team to use. They are sanitized and exclude confidential company material.
Learning Ops Interview Scorecard
Learning Ops Interview Scorecard
A structured way to compare candidates against the work instead of the loudest interview moment.
Storyboard Review Exercise
Storyboard Review Exercise
A realistic task that tests whether the candidate can find unclear build instructions.
Decision Calibration Guide
Decision Calibration Guide
A format that keeps interview debriefs from becoming preference debates.
The results
The operating insight
Hiring for learning operations is different from hiring for a single craft role. The team needs people who can think in systems while still making the learning experience better.
The out-of-the-box move was treating interview design as a quality system. The hiring process had to reveal the work and the candidate.
What this proves
- I can build hiring systems that support a growing L&D function.
- I know how to separate interview polish from operating judgment.
- I develop managers after hiring them, which protects the system as the team grows.