It is a sad fact that many people who attend interviews have information that they will withhold. This puts you, as the HR Manager, at a huge disadvantage because you cannot explore areas that are kept hidden from you. When you are interviewing you need to have strategies and tactics that will open up your candidate so that you can make an informed decision.

It is very difficult to make an informed decision if the candidate has deliberately held back telling you things that may be important. There are two very effective ways of finding out from the candidate things that they did not want to tell you.

The first tactic is to have multiple interviews. As the person becomes more and more relaxed through the interview processes they will tell you more and more. They will drop their guard when they meet you for a second time. As you design your questions probe a little bit deeper than you did the first time. It will be surprising what the candidates will actually tell you.

Each time you get a nugget of information, drill down and ask supplementary questions. This will enable you to build a coherent picture about this particular candidate. Match all your information with what you have gathered so far and you can accurately predict how this person is going to fit in with your existing team and what they have to contribute.

This is a very subtle interview technique that provides a lot of interesting information. During the interview process you will have built up a rapport with the last few candidates. Your interviews and phone calls will have contributed to a relationship. As you get to the last interview there is a tactic which is very effective. No matter how long you have spent with the candidate, no matter how many formal and informal interviews you have conducted, no matter how many assignments they have completed, this is a tactic that always works because it is so subtle. It is very effective if used during the last formal interview.

You will have learned a lot about each candidate during the interview process and you will have gained an impression of their value to your business. Now, you're going to apply some subtle pressure. Previously, you will have gone to great lengths to put the candidates at ease so that you can identify their normal behaviour.

The following way of phrasing the statement is based on my speech patterns. Rewrite it to suit yourself.

"Okay John, we are coming to the end of the interview process and I would like to thank you for your contribution and your straightforward answers to some difficult questions. It has been a long process because we are serious about appointing the right person to this position. So, thank you for bearing with us. Our time is nearly up and there is just seven minutes to go in the interviewing process."

After saying this, then ask a prepared question especially one where you didn't get a satisfactory answer the first time around. You might not have time to ask a question because the candidate will often say, "By the way..." and reveal some information that would have never been mentioned in normal circumstances. Another response is, "I almost forgot to mention..." Translated this can mean, "This is extremely important."

When you announce that there is seven minutes left, watch carefully because the performance of the candidate may change as they relax their guard. This tactic works for a couple of reasons. First of all the candidate has invested time and effort in trying to secure this particular position and secondly, there is a little squeeze of pressure.

The pressure that they feel is largely self -induced especially during the final interview. They will have a compulsion to tell you things to cement their case for selection. Understandably, they realise that this is the last chance, the last throw of the dice for them to win the job. Frequently, the candidate will rush to tell you things that they had planned to convey to you but the subtle pressure makes them less circumspect and often they will reveal information that they didn't plan to tell.

Given this sort of self induced pressure, it's hardly surprising that they will tell you things that they had no intention of expressing during this last seven minutes. The winner is the interview panel.

This useful tactic invariably produces something really important and valuable from the candidate that is relevant to the whole process of assessing suitability.