Guide to the Professional Interview: A Research-based Interview Methodology for People Who Ask Questions

The world is loaded with information. We enjoy immediate access to most of it through laptops, smartphones and the Internet. There is, however, a great deal of information that professionals cannot reach unless they talk to their clients, patients, job applicants and others. In fact, the number of professions in need of accurate and reliable information through professional conversations is huge. The way professionals approach these interpersonal meetings will have profound impact not only on the subsequent decisions the information-gathering is intended to support but also equally on the clients' trust in the interviewer and their organisations. No interview setting has been subjected to more systematic and critical research than police detectives in their interpersonal encounters with victims, witnesses and suspects of crime. This research has provided the police with innovative interviewing techniques. The knowledge and principles underpinning the concept of Investigative Interviewing, its models and techniques, provide more accurate and reliable information than any other known interview technique. It is founded on ethical, interpersonal communication theories and informed by cognitive and social psychology. Equally important, it is designed for practitioners and delivered through a practical step-by-step model – a model we are confident is of great utility value, far beyond police stations.
The knowledge underpinning the concept of Investigative Interviewing provides more accurate and reliable information than any other known interview technique. It is founded on interpersonal communication theories and informed by cognitive and social psychology. Equally important, it is designed for practitioners and delivered through a practical model for professional interviewing.
The world is loaded with information. We enjoy immediate access to most of it through laptops, smartphones and the Internet. There is, however, a great deal of information that professionals cannot reach unless they talk to their clients, patients, job applicants and others. When the purpose is to obtain accurate, relevant and reliable information, no professional interpersonal encounter has been subjected to more systematic and critical research than police interviews of victims, witnesses and suspects of crime. Knowledge derived from this research has formed a novel, more effective way to gather information. The concept is known as Investigative Interviewing, and throughout Interviewing Techniques for Professionals, the authors demonstrate that research-based methodology is applicable and likely to advance professional interviews within a wide range of professions. Based on the extensive feedback the authors have received as advisors and trainers from a highly diverse group of clients and participants, including prosecutors, judges, journalists, investors, recruiters, physicians, researchers, NGOs, lawyers, HR employees, immigration- taxation- child protection- food and competition authorities, to name a few, it has become evident that the concept of Investigative Interviewing is of great utility value, far beyond police stations. The pressure to perform and conclude creates working environments vulnerable to errors related to decision making. These challenges are not unique to the police. Unfortunate consequences directly related to poor interviewing can be of a social, financial and human nature. Without professional interviewing techniques, including a methodology that stimulates open mindedness, physicians, head-hunters, intelligence personnel, finance analytics, journalists and others run the risk of confirming their premature assumptions. In worst case scenarios, resulting in deaths caused by wrong treatment, refugees are deported only to face torture or executions, bankruptcy and so onThe techniques presented by the authors were specifically developed to guide interviewers through a mental and practical process that will allow them to remain open-minded to all possibilities, mitigating problems associated with premature decisions. A growing body of research shows with consensus that interviews conducted by professionals without theoretical knowledge and a methodological approach can, at worst, lead to self-fulfilling prophecies, where the interviewer only succeeds in extracting information that confirms his or her premature conceptions, opinions or assumptions. Besides providing the reader with a methodology that stimulates open-mindedness, Interviewing Techniques for Professionals will provide the reader with question techniques developed to test the interviewer`s preconceptions. It will also provide an understanding of what kind of questions reveal the most information; which questions should be asked first; which questions ought to be avoided; how questions should be presented; and, in particular, which interpersonal communication principles stimulate rapport and mitigate communication breakdowns.