What comes to mind when I ask, “What makes a good interviewer?”
I usually hear words like patient, open-minded, transparent, honest, empathetic, and unbiased (as much as any of us can be).
These are all spot-on. They are qualities most of us would want in an interviewer, and I’ll take hearing those over terms like argumentative, closed-minded, authoritative, intimidating, certain, or biased any day.
But there is an elephant in the room.
There is often a disconnect between the qualities we say make a good interviewer and the behaviors that surface during an actual interview. It is a disconnect we have encountered in nearly every training we have conducted this year.
People know what the right approach looks like on paper. In practice, however, something very different can emerge.
Think about the last time you interviewed an employee for theft. Run through the following questions as an honest inventory of how the interview unfolded:
- During the first 15 minutes, who did most of the talking—you or the interviewee?
- How much time passed before the interviewee was completely clear about what you were there to discuss? One minute? Five minutes? Ten? Fifteen?
- When preparing for the interview, how many different pieces of information did you plan to explore? Were you focused primarily on obtaining one anticipated admission?
- Did you spend time explaining your role or describing how you conduct investigations in a way intended to make the interviewee feel “caught” before you ever asked a substantive question?
I could go on—and on.
Read through those examples and ask yourself:
Where do transparency, patience, open-mindedness, honesty, and empathy enter the equation?
If an interviewer enters the room with a strategy built around getting someone to react to a question that already assumes their guilt, how non-accusatory is their approach?
If most of the preparation involves deciding how to make the accusation, what questions to ask afterward, or what stories you can tell them that might lower their guard, how much room remains for genuine open-mindedness?
This doesn’t mean the interviewer is dishonest, uncaring, or intentionally biased. In many cases, they are applying the process they were trained to use—and may have done so successfully for years. The problem is that the process can become so deeply embedded that it begins to drive the interviewer, rather than the interviewer thoughtfully navigating the encounter.
We see this when an experienced investigator asks during our training, “Alright, so when I am using your approach (SBI), when do I ask them the question?”
Interviewers have been hardwired to follow a process. When that familiar process is removed, even highly experienced investigators can feel like they’ve lost their GPS. They start searching for a new set of directions that will tell them exactly what to say and precisely when to say it.
But replacing one script with another does not solve the underlying problem.
The skill of interviewing does not include a play-by-play manifest. Investigators want to enter the room with a sound strategy, use the interpersonal skills necessary to navigate difficult interactions, and develop the presence of mind to adapt as new information emerges.
They want to leave the interview with a fuller and more accurate understanding of what happened—not just an admission related to the one piece of information they already had.
That requires more than knowing which qualities make a good interviewer. It also requires the ability to assess whether—and how well—our approach reflects those qualities in practice.
So, ask yourself:
If you believe transparency, honesty, open-mindedness, patience, and empathy are essential qualities of a skilled interviewer, how does your current approach truly align with those qualities in practice?
What would happen if, during your next interview, you were expected to speak for no more than 20 percent of the conversation?
What if the interviewee had to understand the reason for the interview from the beginning?
What if you could not rely on a script to tell you what to say next?
What would you do?
Because the real measure of a good interviewer is not the ability to say the right things. It is the alignment between what we say we value, what we actually do in the interview room, and the outcomes our approach produces.
That alignment should be challenged constantly. We should be willing to examine our assumptions, question our methods, and change what we do when the evidence tells us there is a better way. That is at the heart of science-based interviewing.
There is no marriage to a particular process or approach. There is a commitment to the principles the evidence shows to be both ethical and effective—and a willingness to evolve alongside that evidence.
If we expect interviewers to remain open-minded, our field must be willing to do the same.