Few compliance professionals likely would equate interviews conducted as part of an investigation with blind dates. But for Meric Craig Bloch, principal at Winter Investigations, the similarities abound, from safety issues to communication.

Bloch—who said he has conducted more than 800 investigations “ranging from fraud to ‘I hate my boss’”—said he’s had fewer than 800 blind dates, but enough to notice that essentially, “investigative interviews and blind dates are pretty much the same thing.”

He used a list of blind dating principles inspired by Glamour magazine to develop suggestions for investigative interviews.

“We investigators—our work is serious, of course, but we don’t have to take ourselves so seriously,” Bloch said at a June 29 webinar sponsored by the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics.^[1] “So, I thought this was a great way to do a training presentation on ways to make your interviewing technique even better, but to do it in the context of something a little more lighthearted than some of the scary scenarios we get in our usual training.”

Here are his suggestions for investigative interviews:

1. In the context of a blind date, your matchmaker can give you information on the person with whom they set you up, Bloch said. In the context of investigative interviews, this means “you never want to take an interview of a colleague without doing your due diligence to learn as much as you can about that person.” Find out their job duties and how long they’ve been with the company, but also “start thinking about their personality, because everyone communicates in a different way.” Consider the person’s motivations and don’t dehumanize them.