Advice for aspiring interviewers

Stay curious, always be involved in your guests, care about what your guest thinks, and leave your own opinions out of it. That's it.

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Related posts tagged 'Being a good interviewer'

It’s a matter of easing into it and sacrificing the idea of “this is what I need to know by the end of this”. I’m doing interviews in an audio format - all the things you’re going to feel listening to that interview might not be about information per se, they’re about engagement. If people are caught up with what they want to ask and what they want to know, they can get detached from what’s happening in the present, because they want to get at something else. But if you let things unfold, and talk about nothing, that often leads to the bigger thing, and I’m like “Well, I didn’t need to talk about that, it just happened”. We just have a conversation. And the thing is, I’m not a journalist. I’...
I think it's a matter of approach. I think I'm very comfortable to be around. They know I'm sincerely interested in them. That I will listen completely to their answer, I make good eye contact, and I care about what they have to say. And I don't use the word "I" because the interview subject is not me.
The sad truth is, people are only interested in themselves. So, if you just ask them what they are doing or what’s going on or how they feel, they generally go on for hours. I read in an article recently that you should ask people what's challenging them these days and that really sparks them. So ask them that...and then run!
sometimes it just naturally goes in directions people didn't expect - i'm thinking of pam murphy and will hines on a recent episode. when we take a break, I'll usually ask, "Is there somewhere else you were thinking of going with it, and can i lead you back there?" Most improvisers don't care about where it ends up, because the journey is more important than the destination.