This paper deals with the design of proportional and derivative (p.d.) controllers in order to assign the poles of a linear multivariable system. It is shown that, for almost all reachable and observable systems given by a triplet (A,B,C), whereAεRn.n,BεRn.randCεRm.n,vpoles can be assigned arbitrarily close tovspecified symmetric values, wherev= max {min(n, 2r + m− 1), min (n, 2m + r − l)}−l, with 1≥0, so thatldegrees of freedom are disposable and can be used to locate the remainingn–vpoles in a specified region of the complex plane. Examples are included for illustration.