How to Answer: Have you ever received negative feedback after an employee training session? If so, how did you respond?
Advice and answer examples written specifically for a Training and Development Manager job interview.
27. Have you ever received negative feedback after an employee training session? If so, how did you respond?
What You Need to Know
After a busy day of meetings, presentations, and answering employee questions, the last thing you want to hear is negative feedback. However, negative feedback can be beneficial if you learn how to implement the information correctly. As a Training and Development Manager, you know it's essential to regularly improve training materials. By applying the information you receive in constructive feedback, you can be on top of your program offerings. Discuss with the interviewer how you sort through any criticism and how you apply it to improve your work performance.
Written by Ryan Brown on June 29th, 2020
Focus Your Answer On
When an interviewer asks if you've ever received negative feedback after an employee training session, they're not trying to catch you out or dwell on a failure. Instead, they're interested in understanding how you handle constructive criticism and use it to improve your work. So if you have indeed received negative feedback at some point, don't be afraid to acknowledge it. In fact, being honest about a less-than-perfect training experience can actually work in your favor, as it shows self-awareness, humility, and a growth mindset.
The key is to focus not just on the feedback itself, but on how you responded to it. This is your opportunity to showcase your professionalism, your commitment to continuous improvement, and your ability to turn a challenging situation into a learning opportunity.
When you're sharing your example, start by providing a bit of context about the training session in question. What was the topic? Who was the audience? What were the goals? This helps the interviewer understand the situation and the stakes involved.
Then, describe the specific feedback you received. Try to be as objective and non-defensive as possible. Maybe participants found the content too basic or not relevant to their jobs. Maybe they felt the delivery was too lecture-heavy and not interactive enough. Maybe they had trouble with the technology or the logistics of the session. Whatever the feedback was, the important thing is to show that you took it seriously and sought to understand it fully. Emphasize any steps you took to gather more information or get clarification. Did you reach out to participants individually for more details? Did you review the evaluations carefully to identify patterns or themes? This demonstrates that you don't just brush off negative feedback, but actively seek to learn from it.
Once you've described the feedback, shift your focus to how you responded. Highlight any immediate actions you took to address participants' concerns. Maybe you followed up with additional resources or one-on-one coaching. Maybe you made tweaks to the remaining sessions in the series based on the feedback. But more importantly, talk about the longer-term changes you made to your approach based on what you learned. Did you redesign the content to be more job-specific? Did you incorporate more interactive elements or opportunities for practice? Did you change the way you introduce or frame the training to better set expectations? The goal is to show that you used the feedback as a catalyst for meaningful, thoughtful improvements to your work.
As you're describing your response, it's also good to reflect on what you learned from the experience more broadly. Maybe it reinforced for you the importance of really understanding your audience and tailoring content to their needs. Maybe it taught you the value of building in more check-ins and opportunities for feedback throughout a training, rather than just at the end. Sharing these insights demonstrates your ability to extract valuable lessons even from difficult experiences.
Written by William Rosser on March 18th, 2024
1st Answer Example
"I have had negative feedback in the past where I feel a little sting of hurt. It's never easy to receive negative comments; however, I will always consider it if the input is helpful and honest. I have learned to filter through feedback, listen to what is constructive, and then remove the rest so that I do not develop any emotion towards it. I use feedback as an opportunity to improve. Rather than taking feedback personally, I ask questions to understand further how I could do improve. I'm proactive about implementing changes in my training programs and am happy to identify weaknesses so that the programs are as impactful as possible."
Written by Ryan Brown on June 29th, 2020
2nd Answer Example
"A few years ago, I was delivering a series of workshops on effective presentation skills for our marketing and sales teams. The goal was to help them create more compelling, persuasive presentations for both internal and external audiences. I'd delivered similar trainings before and felt confident in the content and my delivery. However, after the first session, I received some troubling feedback in the evaluations. Several participants noted that while the information was useful, they struggled to see how it applied specifically to their roles and the types of presentations they typically gave. They felt the examples and exercises were too generic and didn't reflect the unique challenges they faced. This feedback caught me off guard. I thought I had a good understanding of these teams and their presentation needs, but clearly, I had missed the mark.
My first step was to take a step back and carefully review all the feedback, looking for common themes. I also reached out to a few of the participants directly to get more context and specific examples of where the training fell short for them. Through these conversations, I realized that I had made some assumptions about the types of presentations these teams were giving and the skills they needed. The marketers, for instance, were often presenting data-heavy research findings, while the sales folks were typically giving product demos. Each required a distinct approach that my generic training hadn't adequately addressed.
Armed with this insight, I knew I needed to make some significant changes before the next session. I started by completely restructuring the content to include separate modules for different presentation types - data presentations, persuasive presentations, demo presentations, etc. Within each module, I included specific examples and exercises tailored to the unique challenges of that presentation style.
I also reached out to subject matter experts in the marketing and sales teams to get their input and real-world examples. I incorporated their feedback to make the content as relevant and applicable as possible. In the subsequent training sessions, I was transparent with participants about the changes I had made and why. I acknowledged the feedback I had received and thanked them for their honesty and insights. I encouraged them to continue sharing their thoughts and experiences throughout the session so we could continue to tailor the training to their needs. The response to the revised training was overwhelmingly positive. Participants appreciated the more targeted, role-specific content and felt it was immediately applicable to their work. They also expressed appreciation for the fact that I had not only listened to their feedback but visibly acted on it.
Looking back, this experience taught me a valuable lesson about the importance of really understanding your audience and tailoring content to their specific needs. It's not enough to have a one-size-fits-all approach, even if that approach has worked well in the past. Each group of learners is unique, and it's our job as trainers to meet them where they are. It also reinforced for me the value of building in feedback loops and being open to constructive criticism. If I hadn't taken that feedback seriously and been willing to make changes based on it, I likely would have continued to deliver a subpar training experience. By being responsive and adaptable, I was able to turn a negative into a positive and ultimately deliver more value to my learners.
Since then, I've made it a practice to do more upfront needs assessment and stakeholder engagement when designing training programs. I also build in more opportunities for real-time feedback and adjustment throughout the training process. And I always try to model openness to feedback and a willingness to learn and improve. So while receiving negative feedback is never pleasant, I've come to see it as a gift. It's an opportunity to gain insights, to challenge my assumptions, and to grow as a training professional. And when handled with grace, professionalism, and a commitment to improvement, it can be a powerful catalyst for delivering truly impactful learning experiences."
Written by William Rosser on March 18th, 2024
Anonymous Interview Answers with Professional Feedback
Anonymous Answer
I appreciate the feedback on my training programs, positive and negative, as the negative identify weaknesses upon which I improve to meet better and serve the needs of those I train."
Alexandra's Feedback
Anonymous Answer
Stephanie's Feedback