ABSTRACT
As a tool for acquiring interview skills, role-playing is an ideal substitute for real-life practice. In a role-play, an interview situation is acted out by two people: one playing the interviewer and the other the interviewee. Although learning to conduct interviews ultimately occurs by conducting them, how to conduct them must first be learned. The success of a role-play interview requires, in addition to the individuals in the interviewer and interviewee roles, at least one person who is designated as an observer. Trainee interviewers have to study the theory underlying the skills being rehearsed. The primary objective of role-playing in an interview-training program is, of course, to train the interviewer. The role-plays are micro-exercises that tend to focus on one specific skill rather than interviewing in general and that, correspondingly, utilise only a small part of an interview guide rather than all of it.
