A YOUNG footballer walks into a small room at Melbourne's Etihad Stadium and takes a seat at the rectangular table that dominates the room. He's done the same thing many times before during the NAB AFL Draft Combine, but this is the interview that could determine whether he is drafted by the Brisbane Lions.

If he's anxious about the situation he doesn't show it, but he could be forgiven a few nerves. Five club officials are staring back at him as the interview begins and they don't pull any punches.

Over the next 17 minutes he's asked about 40 questions about football, family and life in general. When he responds to a question with clichés or what he thinks his interviewers want to hear, he is pressed to better illustrate his point.

It's a thorough examination, but Lions national talent manager Rob Kerr makes no apologies.

He's charged with sifting through the hundreds of AFL hopefuls in the talent pool for the 2011 draft and coming up with a short list of players he believes will justify the considerable investment his club will make in them if he calls their name at Thursday night's draft meeting in Sydney.

"The main thing with our interviews is that we're just trying to get to know them a little better and get a feel for their personality, character and life experiences," Kerr says.

"They're obviously pretty important and, in our case, most of the boys will have to move interstate, so we try to probe around a few of those life experiences and get a bit of insight into when they've had to adapt to a changed situation.

"We look for a situation where they might have had to show a bit of personal resilience, because we have some concern when we draft a player that if he finds it hard to adapt or if he's a bit lonely then you like to be picking fellas who you think have got the coping strategies to be able to adapt to that.

"It's always a risk [drafting players from interstate], but really what you're trying to do is manage your risk in that situation."

The Lions' interview team consists of Kerr, national recruiting manager Graeme Hadley, football operations general manager Dean Warren, head of welfare/leadership and culture Manny Lynch and assistant recruiting manager Stephen Conole.

Senior coach Michael Voss was in Melbourne for the combine, but he puts a lot of faith in his recruiting team and doesn't sit in on every interview.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars will be invested in every player selected on Thursday night and the Lions' future on-field success is inextricably linked to the ability of Kerr's team to make the right choice.

Of course, a player's ability with a football is far more important than his way with words, but the interview process is a vital part in the decision-making process.

"The interview counts a fair bit for us," Kerr says.

"As a general rule any player who gets to Brisbane has been interviewed three times.

"Prior to the combine interviews, Graeme Hadley and Stephen Conole will have gone to the boy's house and sat down with him and his family and had a bit of a chat. Then we have a second interview and we narrow the search further then, when we're looking at draft picks - particularly at the top end - we'd go and talk to the boy again.

"We're looking for a good fit as much as anything out of the interview process.

"If an interview goes badly then you walk out and say, 'Well, how will this player fit in our environment?' It raises red flags that you'd certainly follow up on.

"If an interview went really well and that player was high up in your rankings then he might be elevated marginally above others in a similar bracket.

"Obviously it always helps if a player has ticked every box."

Some clubs like to see how a player will react if confronted with something a bit different during an interview.

Former Port Adelaide coach Mark Williams was known for his left field questions and a few recruiters have carried on his legacy, with some players asked to call the last 100m of a horse race or explain how they would cook a roast at the combine.

Kerr, who has a PhD in psychology and a background in corporate recruitment, believes there's no right or wrong interviewing strategy, but he prefers a more scientific approach.

"Ours is a really structured interview where we do ask the same group of questions," he says. 

"We have a sheet where we have what an answer we scored as a one out of five looks like up to what a five out of five answer looks like.

"At the end of the interview we'll each make our own assessments and then come back and compare our scores and talk about any areas of divergence or areas of concern or any real positives.

"We want to be able to compare across all the players. In order to do that in any sort of intensive manner a fair proportion of the interview has to be structured with a clear set of what I call 'behavioural anchors' to help us put a score to it."

When the interview is over the player is thanked for his time and he departs the room none the wiser about his chances of joining the Lions on Thursday night.

By then the Brisbane Lions' recruiting team will have watched thousands of hours of live football and taped footage and conducted hundreds of interviews. All of that work will produce a mere four names, but those names could prove pivotal to the success or failure of the team.

That's for others to determine, however, because by the time the draft class of 2011 has taken the field Kerr and his team will be looking for the next pride of Lions.