Interviewing Skills for Auditors
One of the more difficult skills to acquire, as a novice auditor, is the ability to conduct effective interviews. Too many interviews are badly structured, have no logical goals and end up as time-wasters.
This course provides a stimulating introduction to interviewing and focuses on preparation, strategy, structure and effectiveness.
Suitability and duration
Suitability: Beginner
Duration: 2 days
Who should attend
This intensive hands-on course is open to all-comers, although staff with less experience will find it of greatest value. The heart of the course is in the correct planning, sequencing and performance of interviews. The result is a course where participants spend most of their time conducting case-study interviews.
Benefits
Skills
After completion of this course, you will be able to:
- Describe the nature of communication between people
- Plan an interview with regard to context, time and goals
- Interview subjects in a positive atmosphere whilst maintaining control
- Deploy questioning strategies and tactics to yield the maximum amount of useful information § Employ good note-taking methods to record interviews
- Deal with difficult interviews or difficult subjects
Support materials
This course is accompanied by a substantial manual that includes full briefing notes and strategies for interviewing.
Programme
How communications work
- People exchanging information
- Gestures, movements and body language
- Local practices and cultural issues
- Your personality and the perfect interview
Planning interviews
- Different types of interviews
- Courtesy protocols
- Location
- Context and goal setting
- Mapping out a timeline
- Recording goals achieved
Questioning strategies
- Assumptions and constraints
- Appearance, posture and engagement
- When to talk and when to listen
- Open and closed questioning
- Probing questions - Leading questions - Rhetorical questions
- Controlling depth and direction and keeping to the point
- Sending reassurance signals and feedback to the speaker
- Summarisation
Note-taking
- Note-taking protocols
- Recordings – voice and photographic
- Note validation and write up
Tricky issues
- Wrong person or place
- Hostility, reticence and silence
Ethical issues
- Blackmail and threats
- Tip-offs
