How to Interview

A Skill Needed by Every Adjuster, Investigator and Lawyer

© 2025 by Barry Zalma, Esq., CFE

The interview is an essential form of fact gathering for every type of human interaction. Interviews happen everywhere; they are performed by almost everyone. Interviewing is also an art, and the most effective interviews are conducted by those who are knowledgeable and skilled in this art.

Everyone has been interviewed. And everyone has, at some point in his or her life, interviewed another person.

What Is an Interview?

No two human beings are alike in how they think and react, any more than two strands of DNA are alike. What induces one person to speak freely can alienate another. Social background is the key determiner. A recent immigrant from a totalitarian regime may be reluctant to give truthful, personal information to anyone in apparent authority for fear of persecution or prosecution. A middle-class teenager raised in the San Fernando Valley of Southern California might enthusiastically and breathlessly relate his entire life story . . . even if not asked to do so. A person brought up in the Ozarks may feel inclined to go off on a long, apparently unrelated preamble before answering even the simplest question. A lawyer, habitually and masterfully holding her cards close to the chest, will prefer to confine her answers to a minimal “yes” or “no.”

Some worldly and sophisticated people are calm and forthcoming in an interviewer’s office, while others who are unaccustomed to formal proceedings find the process intimidating and somewhat frightening. Conversely, it sometimes happens that the experienced, sophisticated person will cautiously refuse to communicate in an interviewer’s office, while the “average” person will feel perhaps uncharacteristically at ease in the presence of an impressive professional interviewer. And then there is the doctor who will talk freely about medicine, but not at all about her real property holdings, or the mechanic who will talk constantly about cars, but not say a word about his recreational activities or family life outside work. In short, no situation — and certainly no person — is ever the same as another.

Similarly, what strikes the conscience of one person interviewed will not evoke the slightest pangs of guilt in another. A person with multiple convictions for perjury probably has an inactive or very sleepy conscience. A person brought up in a Roman Catholic or Jewish family might be more susceptible to techniques that raise feelings of guilt than a confirmed atheist would be. So, for instance, to gain information when interviewing a religious individual, the professional may find it effective to play on the subject’s religiously cultivated sense of guilt and his or her probable fear of incarceration or punishment.

The varieties are endless: while one subject will listen and respond cooperatively to reason and logic, another will be more susceptible to an emotion-based appeal. It is up to the interviewer to constantly amend and update the tactics of the interview to fit the personality of the person interviewed.

There is a key to each person interviewed that, when found, will unlock even the most guarded information. By careful and patient questioning, it is the task of the interviewer to find the key, and then to exploit it to extract the truth. Once the key is discovered, even the subject may be surprised at how much previously concealed information he or she is ready to reveal.

Six Key Interview Questions

Every interview is directed toward determining the answer to six questions:

· Who?

· What?

· When?

· Where?

· Why?

· How?

Interviewing as an Art Form

Professional interviewing to gather information is more than a practical skill: it can be seen as an artistic endeavor. The investigative interview is a structured conversation between a trained and experienced interviewer and a person who likely has no training in, nor any real awareness of, interview procedures.

It is important to note from the start that an interview is not an interrogation. It is not the stuff of spy films, police investigations, or prisoner-of-war camps. The art is developed from scientific techniques obtained from criminal investigators and trained psychologists, but is performed by the proficient interviewer automatically, fluidly, and unselfconsciously. In other words, the art of conducting an interview must have become so ingrained in the interviewer that it has become second nature. The experienced interviewer must be able to proceed without thinking about what he or she is doing, much as a skilled typist does not think about the location of his or her fingers while typing.

All interviewers want their search for the truth to be thorough and accurate and to yield as much information as possible. However, criminal interrogations and civil interviews diverge in tone and substance. Although both are aimed at revealing the truth, they are used to reach different goals and with totally different techniques.

The Interviewer Recognizes That It is Hard to Lie Consistently

The experienced interviewer recognizes that it is difficult to lie consistently. To find the truth the investigator must be patient and thorough. The accurately aimed follow-up question is a major tool in the hands of the truly skilled interviewer. No one can lie indefinitely to an experienced, prepared interviewer. When the interviewer is organized, focused, and coherent, the subject is eventually rendered unable to obfuscate or employ avoidance tactics. The subject’s efforts to hide lies within irrelevant answers are thwarted, because the experienced interviewer does not let such responses stand.

When, on the other hand, an unskilled interviewer bombards the subject with seemingly random and directionless questions, the desired information is almost never gained. The subject sees through the interviewer’s lack of questioning technique and soon loses respect for the interviewer’s authority.

For example, I once interviewed a person who attempted to answer all my questions with the phrase, “It could be said so.” Since “it could be said” that the sun rises in the west, the answers were intended to be as uninformative as possible while still giving the general impression of cooperation. They were, in fact, noncommittal and vague, and less than useless for purposes of the interview. I was eventually able to get relevant information from the person by not succumbing to the ploy. I patiently but persistently repeated and rephrased the questions until the subject replied without qualifying the answer with the evasive and vacuous, “It could be said so.”

When the interviewer is organized and well prepared, the subject cannot avoid answering truthfully by using the similar ploy of engaging in “telling stories.” Naturally, people convey information in their own personal way, and not in the ideal way an interviewer might envision prior to an interview. Unlike lawyers, when presenting evidence in court, where questions seeking a single word answer is required and asking for a narrative is objectionable, a prudent interviewer will encourage narrative responses, careful to wait patiently for the narrative to be completed before moving on to the more specific, more vital, detail required.