Interview Training

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Interview Training

• Basic Skills

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Course Objectives

• To understand
• your policies and procedures
• interviewing as a methodology
• documenting interviews
• To practice
• developing different types of interviews and
• questions
• conducting an interview

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When to do interviews?

• Background information
• Technical information
• Issue identification
• Problem identification
• Follow-up information

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Categories of Evidence

• Physical direct inspection or observation
• Analytical comparisons or computations
• Documentary letter, contracts, and
• invoices
• Testimonial interviews or questionnaires

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Types of Interviews

• Informal and conversational
• Guided
• Standardized open-ended
• Closed, fixed response

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Question Sets
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Class Exercise 1

• Review the standardized open-ended
• interview, and
• Identify the type of question that was
• asked.

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Question Order

• Non-controversial items
• Current condition
• Opinion about condition
• Past condition
• Future condition
• Anything else...

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Question Wording

• Avoid
• unintentional primes
• dichotomies
• why questions
• implied critiques or judgments
• indirect questions

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Question Wording

• Clear
• Concise
• Contain single ideas
• Correct grammar

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Class Exercise 2

• Review the standardized open-ended
• interview, and
• identify issues in question sequence
• wording strengths and weaknesses

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Managing the Interview The Three Ps

• Priming
• Creating associations
• between groups or
• objects to elicit a
• particular response.

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Managing the Interview The Three Ps

• Probes
• Following up on a
• question to obtain more
• information.
• Elaboration
• Clarification
• Detail

Huh?
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Managing the Interview The Three Ps

• Prompts
• Sends the message that
• you are engaged and lets
• you control the interview
• through setting the pace,
• tone, and tasks.

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Listening

• Be engaged
• Demonstrate your interest
• Tolerate silence
• and watch for non-verbal cues.

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Tips on Note Taking

• Make attributions
• correctly
• Note follow-up
• questions and info
• requests
• Develop a short hand
• style

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Closing the Interview

• Stay on time
• Ask if they have any questions
• Thank the person for their time
• Ask for permission to follow up with
• questions

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Documenting Interviews

• Write up your notes quickly
• Identify follow up
• Have others review your work
• Distinguish between facts and stated
• personal views

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Documenting Interviews

• QA Sequence
• Organized by question list
• Ensures complete answers to questions
• May be tedious or difficult to read
• May miss big picture

• Topical Sequence
• Narrative structure, easy to read
• Summary of big picture
• May miss responses to specific questions

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Class Exercise 3

• The Hot Seat
• The Proud
• The Dismissive
• The Quiet One
• The Talker
• The Whistleblower