THE EXAMINATIONS AT WORK 2
an inquisitor but also an instructor and a salesman. There
is an artistry of interviewing which involves more than skill
in extracting information.
A sound psychology carefully avoids the use of inquisito-
rial practices in the interview or of test procedures bung-
lingly handled by novices in a way to defeat the creation in
the applicants of the right attitudes and motives.
The leaving interview, likewise, is not complete unless it
performs the same three functions—getting information,
giving information, and making a friend.
The employment manager in the modern personnel de-
partment usually designates his most skilled interviewer to
talk with leaving employees. He sees both those who are
discharged and those who leave voluntarily. The foreman
sends to the employment office, along with the time slip, a
form on which he states the cause of separation. But often
he does not know the real cause. It is the duty of the leav-
ing interviewer to get underneath the surface and to find out
if possible the essential circumstances which led to the final
break.
This is not an easy task. The employee, having decided
to quit, wants to get away with as little delay as possible.
So he is apt to give the most plausible reason for going,
rather than to speak frankly about matters which might
tend to prolong the interview. He says he is leaving for a
better job or is going back to school, when the truth is that
he does not know what he is going to do, but sees little
chance for advancement where he is, or feels that the in-
spector who has been passing on the quality of his work has
not been treating him fairly. It takes a shrewd, sympa-
thetic, sensible questioner to get at the truth. Such an inter-
viewer is often able to uncover conditions which are remedi-
able and to save the employee to the company. Sometimes
he is able to make the employee see that he is acting rashly
or unwisely; that the job to which he is going, while paying
nominally a better rate, has disadvantages which more than
outweigh the difference in pay. If the leaving interviews are
52%
