ABSTRACT
The two main considerations for the interviewer are, first, how best to ensure the candidate's co-operation and, second, how to conduct the interview so that it may yield most information about him. The first consideration may seem unimportant where the interview is with someone who wants an appointment or promotion. The 'stress' interview, carried even to the point of deliberate rudeness and provocation, has had its advocates. Usually, however, it defeats its own end, since the sophisticated candidate will treat it warily, whereas the diffident person is liable to be reduced to a pulp quite unlike his usual self. The extent to which an interview can be allowed to run free and the extent to which it must have a definite pattern imposed upon it will depend not only on what is already known but on the time available.
