Differences in the linguistic behaviour of West and East Germans have so far been traced largely in the area of lexis. This study sets out to establish whether there are also linguistic differences of a communicative nature identifiable for their interactive relevance in encounters between Germans from East and West. The field of study explored here is the communicative genre of job interviews. On the empirical basis of 41 authentic interviews and also of role games, East/West differences and their consequences for the course taken by job interviews are examined with reference to three main areas: processing genre knowledge, responses to typical questions, strategies in dealing with differences in conversational style.