Roman Itskovich

Recently I’ve found that I’m pretty fascinated with interpersonal communication. I’m not talking about your regular computer communication and the blogging, forums and other web 2.0 things that are so hype nowadays. I’m talking about old-school interpersonal communication where two or more people talk face to face about various topics. I’m talking about interviewing and negotiations and just random encounters.

So, I’ve picked up a book about interviews. Because one doesn’t encounter many interviews in his everyday life I haven’t found any books talking about it. I’ve ended up with  a book about the REID technique - a technique used for criminal interrogation and interviews.

I must say - this book is fascinating. It a whole other thing from what I’ve imagined before starting to read it. It almost doesn’t talk about reading body language at all - but rather, about how to formulate questions, and what to understand from the answers to those questions. Truly fascinating.

This week I had an Interview with a SEO expert who was looking for a position in the company I work at. As with each interview I’m conducting lately, I’ve tried to be as alert and attentive as possible in order to see what topics he avoids and where he is covering up for something. I’ve tried to gather as much information as possible in order to try to understand what kind of a person he is. I thought I’ve succeeded, so I’ve recommended our CFO to interview him.

She, on the other hand, had a different impression of him. We’ve sat and talked and it turned out that I’ve read him good. I just didn’t ask the right questions, and because of that didn’t come to the right topics where his personality would shine through. And no book will help you with that - You just have to practice.