Interview and Interrogation Training

Take 2: Lessons Learned in the Interview Room

We’re human and we all make mistakes.  It’s inevitable.  At some point in your investigative career you’ll find yourself making a mistake during the interview process.  Many times the person you are interviewing will be unaware of the mistake, but it’s always a good idea to keep a mental record of your “interview bloopers” to prepare you for the occasional situation that will require you to recover and overcome...

Identifying Intent: An Auditors Guide to the Truth

Another day, another audit. The routines of compliance or auditing professionals may seem very rigid, full of checks and balances, checkmarks and scores; sometimes even the announcement that an auditor is onsite will cause a location or department to completely derail from their current focus and scramble to satisfy all of their required tasks to remain compliant. However, there is more to compliance than pass or fail and those...

A Tale of Two Headlines: Persuading vs. Reporting

Guilty or Innocent?  Right or Wrong? Apparently it depends on which article you read and the author’s motive. In a culture where the most controversial stories result in better ratings, it is inevitable that these persuasive reports will exist.  However, it causes unfair and unjust consequences for those parties involved when an uninformed society makes a judgment based off a biased report designed to persuade the reader toward a...

Go Behind the Scenes with WZ: Assigning the Best Interviewer

A large source of Wicklander-Zulawski (WZ) training material and ongoing research comes from our very own Investigative Division.  Within this division, we get contacted by organizations, both private and public, to assist or lead in an investigation.   Once we take on the investigation, part of the process includes deciding who would be the best interviewer for the case.  All of the investigators at WZ are CFI’s and experienced interviewers;...

5 Characteristics of a Professional Interviewer

What do you do for a living? A question we have all received, but probably all answer differently.  In some way, shape or form, we attempt to tell people that we are professional interviewers in some capacity.  After answering this question several times myself, I thought I would highlight 5 characteristics that make an individual stand out truly as someone elite in this profession. If you consider yourself a...