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4 Skills Building Interview Assignment
Students need to develop and refine four skills essential for conducting most interviews,
including information gathering, employment, performance review, persuasive, counseling, and
health care. (1) They must learn to ask carefully crafted primary questions. (2) They must learn
to listen carefully to determine whether answers are complete, superficial, vague, inaccurate,
Instructions for interviewers:
1. Develop an interview guide of topics you think will be important for your case. Place
2. Prepare a moderate schedule of questions from your guide, but remember that you
3. Your goal is to obtain as much important information as possible about the case in the
5. Listen carefully. Do not start thinking about your next primary question until you have
6. Be patient! Do not hit and run with a question or two when more is to be gained from a
line of questioning. If you probe onto a sidetrack to see where a line of questioning
7. Take working notes to aid your questioning and memory, such as when an interviewee
gives you a list of names, dates, or events.
8. Interviewees are not involved in these cases in any way, so do not waste time trying to
9. Each interview will be worth _____ points toward your final grade.
Instructions for interviewees:
1. Know your case thoroughly so you can give information accurately without hesitation or
inconsistency from one interview to the next.
3. Be honest and helpful but reticent. Do not volunteer information. The interviewer must
ask for it to receive it.
4. Answer bipolar questions exactly as they are asked, with a yes or no or one word or two.
Instructions for Observers:
2. Observe the entire interview carefully with special focus on how well the interviewer
3. How carefully were the interviewer’s primary questions designed and phrased?
4. How skillfully did the interviewer listen and probe into answers and take advantage of
clues?
5. How patient and persistent was the interviewer in seeking information critical to this
case?
6. What specific suggestions would you make for improvement?
7. Fill out the “Skills Building Interview Critique: Form B” your instructor will provide and
turn it in no later than the next class period. Its thoroughness and insights will be part of
your participation points.
At the beginning of each class period, interviewers for the day leave the room. One
interviewer enters at a time, conducts a complete interview (opening, body, and closing), and
interviewers learned when listening and probing into answers even though they had started
with the slimmest of information. Emphasize the importance of this skills building assignment
for subsequent class and real life interviews. Otherwise, some students will dismiss this
assignment as not “real life” and, therefore, irrelevant to them.
The optimal time for this assignment is 6-7 minutes plus time for closing. If the
average, average, below average, and poor interviews. A common mistake, particularly with
new instructors, is to assign high grades to early interviews and find themselves contributing to
extraordinary grade inflation at the end of the semester.
Many instructors choose to play the role of interviewee and record the interviews for
critiquing and grading later. Some ask other instructors (essentially trading places for the
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information regardless of questions asked and to give different answers to the same questions
from interview to interview.
These cases work well for the skills-building assignment.
Case #1: M. L. Johnson was stopped and arrested in a Chicago park. There has been a
hearing, and Johnson has brought charges against the arresting officers. You are interested
Case #2: Jane Manly is suing Virginia Packman for negligence that caused a painful personal
Case #3: Arthur Nichols is suing neighbor William Parry for damages, costs, and lost income.
Case #4: Giulo Giordano has been accused of cheating at Brier University. The Student Court
Case #5: A natural disaster struck a Boy Scout camp near Elizabeth, Tennessee. Local
Case #6: Marian Williams had her teaching contract terminated at mid-year by the Oak Park
Case #7: William McCollum, a successful farmer in Smithfield, North Dakota, has died and
left an estate. His children are contesting his will. Your family is in a similar situation in
Case #8: Jessie Gustavson and her aunt were stopped as they were leaving a restaurant in
downtown Minneapolis. As a result, she and her aunt are suing the restaurant. You are a
Case #9: Several years ago Matthew Harvey was shot and killed outside of his home in
Case #10: After a wild chase through New York, police stopped a taxi reported to be
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In-Class Interview Critique Forms
Critique Forms A are designed for ease of identifying various levels of achievement and
satisfaction of interviewing principles and practices exhibited during in-class interviews. While
they are standardized, Form A’s allow flexibility in identification of principles met and unmet,
points for each part of interviews, total points for assignments, and space for written
comments. If for instance, you want the opening to be worth five possible points, you can circle
the number 5. If you want it to be worth 3.5 points, place a slash mark between three and four.
You can multiply a number by two or three for weighting and point distribution. If you want
“probing questions” to be worth ten or fifteen points, for example, you merely multiply the
marked number by two or three.
Critique Forms B are designed for instructors who prefer to address in detail how students have
met or not met specific interviewing principles and practices without emphasizing scales and
numbers. For example, letter grades for opening, structure, or questions may be noted in the
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Skills Building Interview Critique: Form A
Name ____________________________
Opening 1 2 3 4 5 x _____ = _____
Body
Focuses on critical areas 1 2 3 4 5 x _____ = _____
Structured Approach 1 2 3 4 5 x _____ = _____
Closing 1 2 3 4 5 x _____ = _____
Communication skills 1 2 3 4 5 x _____ = _____
Total points _________
Comments
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Grading Scale: 0 = no credit, 1 poor, 2 below average, 3 average, 4 above average, 5 excellent
Skills Building Interview Critique: Form B
Name ___________________________
Opening: greeting, rapport building, orientation, techniques, involvement
of the interviewee _____
Use of questions: primary questions, probing questions, avoidance of
common question pitfalls _____
