What it Takes to Be a Great Interviewer
If you are a fan of watching or listening to interviews, you may have encountered bad interviews. It could be a host that won’t stop talking about themselves or asking boring questions, awkward conversations, and uneasy lulls in the conversation.
When done right, interviews may sound effortless. However, it doesn’t just happen. Great interviews are a result of practice and effort, but it is achievable.
The following are trips to being successful with your interviews.
Invest in good transcription services
For persons conducting interviews in highly specialized and technical fields involving research, many jargons may be used, making it hard for the audience to follow. It is crucial to transcribe your interviews for the audience’s benefit to allow your audience to get the most out of them.
Transcribing interviews can be time-consuming. It takes between four to six hours to transcribe an hour of audio or video footage. That means a lot of time lost that could be spent on more meaningful work. But there is a solution to that. This post on how to transcribe interviews for qualitative research can help you understand how to access high-quality human transcription services at the shortest turnaround times and at the best cost in the market.
Prepare your notes, then lose them.
Great interviewers do their homework on their subject. It is essential to practice due diligence during the information collection process by researching your subject while taking notes. Familiarity with the subject can make you confident and is an excellent way of building a connection with your subject.
However, even while taking notes is essential, it is important to understand that professionalism in interviewing calls for losing your notes during the moment of truth. The best approach would be internalizing your research, losing the notes, and staying at the moment, allowing the talk to flow, backed by your beforehand research.
Be a match for your subject.
The success of your interview will be highly dependent on how comfortable you make your subject feel. Great interviewers achieve this by meeting their interviewees on their energy, mood, and body language level.
Take the initial minutes of your interview calibrating your tone, mood, energy level, and body language to match your subject. This also means that your line of questioning may vary from one subject to another based on how you evaluate them. Therefore, it is important to be flexible enough to morph with your subjects to ensure that you get the most out of them.
Prepare your guest pre-interview
Every great interviewer will take their subject through some form of a pre-interview process. Whether you are having an in-person or a remote interview, take some minutes before the interview to prep your guest. Make them feel at ease. This is especially important if they are not used to being interviewed.
Keep them up to speed on what to expect and remind them of your target audience, including the expectations. This will help them fresh up their minds before the interview and tailor their answers to fit your audience, reflecting well on you as the interviewer.
Keep the conversation rolling in the right direction.
You do not have all the time, and neither does your audience. You need to keep your discussions rolling and cover as much ground as you can. It is vital to understand that your audience wants to hear from your guest. So, keep your questions short, clear, and direct.
You may also need to bring your guest back on track if you feel they are reeling too far from the topic with a prepared question.
All in all, as a great interviewer, you need to be in control of the interview.