Idea 88: One-to-one interviews

One-to-one meetings have common characteristics in that they are (usually) pre-arranged, require preparation and have a definite purpose.

Unless it happens to be a dismissal, one-to-one interviews require the following:

• Both parties know the purpose of the meeting (notified in advance).
• The information to be exchanged should be considered in advance and answers at the meeting should be honest.
• As the interviewer you should keep control: stick to the point at issue and the time allocated and give the other party adequate time to talk (prompting by questions if necessary).

The structure of the interview should be as follows:

• The opening – setting the scene, the purpose and a relaxed atmosphere.
• The middle – stay with the purpose, listen, cover the agenda.
• The close – summarize, agree action, end naturally, not abruptly, on a positive note.

Sometimes it is useful to ask appropriate questions to obtain the required information or exchange. Questions to use are open-ended, prompting, probing, or what-if questions, while the ones to avoid (unless they are being used for specific reasons) are yes/no, closed, leading or loaded questions.