Conducting an Interview

Overview

Interviewing is a tricky, often overlooked skill. An interviewer must coordinate several things at the same time: Listening, observing body language, taking notes, planning ahead, recording good audio, and still making the interviewee feel comfortable. Like an actor, an interviewer must coordinate several processes, all the while attempting to appear natural. The good news is this process will become more instinctive and natural the more you practice conducting an interview. At its best, an interview should feel like a conversation. And the more your interviewee feels this way, the more they feel engaged, the better the interview will go.

Tips For Conducting An Interview

• Make sure your equipment works BEFORE you get to your interview.
• Be prepared for your interviewee. Do research. If they have been interviewed for a public media source before, be sure you have read/seen this interview.
  
• Make sure you know how much time you have to conduct an interview. Don't ask for too much, as you may intimidate the interviewee. Don't ask for too little, or you might not get enough out of the interview. Remember: If an interview goes well, the interviewee will probably let it run on longer.
  
• Use an icebreaker, a question that has nothing to do with your interview topic, to get interviewee comfortable. For example, you can ask them to spell their name (and check your recording levels as they do so).
  
• Write your questions in advance. Write them in a logical order, so that one question flows into the next.
• Ask open-ended questions. Do not ask yes/no questions.
• Listen to your subject during the interview. Don't just wait for later to
  
• Do not be afraid to stray away from your questions and your order of questions. And...
• Improvise. Ask follow-up questions.
• Don't ramble on when you ask questions. Keep your questions short.
• Don't cut your interviewee off. If they say something that raises a question in your mind, write it down and ask it later when they are finished talking.
  
• Use silence. Sometimes the best way to get a person to talk is to remain silent when they pause, and...
• Make eye contact. This is key to making the person feel like the interview is a conversation.
• Don't state your aim. You risk alienating your subject if you ask this. Use this question as a LAST RESORT. Ask it at the end of an interview in order to get any information you may have missed.
  
• Instead write oblique questions that will cause your interviewee to talk about your aim without you actually stating it.

Supplementary Materials

• Interviewing: The Ignored Skill
• Interview Techniques