Interview Tips #5: Are You Really Listening?

It annoys the hell out of me when interviewers ask questions that have already been answered, or they miss the opportunity to explore another more interesting avenue of questioning, simply because they haven’t been paying enough attention.

It’s easy to be worrying so much about everything running smoothly and what you are going to say next that you completely forget to involve yourself in the interview and pay attention to what is being said. If you are not connected with the interview and listening to what is being said you run the risk of; annoying your interviewee by making it appear you are not interested in what is being said, losing your audience because they can hear you are not engaged in the subject matter, and missing the opportunities that arise to make this a GREAT interview.

Pre-planning and the right questions alone do not make a great interview. By giving your full attention to what is being said you will be able to:

• ask the right questions at the right time, so the interview flows better
• relax and encourage the interviewee by making it clear you are fascinated by what they say
• engage your listeners through your own interest and enthusiasm for the subject (if an interviewer is drawn into an interview their listeners will be too)
• discover areas of interest and topics you may not have considered in the planning stages that will give added value to the interview and take it to a whole new level.

I listen to a lot of marketing interviews and so often it can be a stray comment that leads to a question the interviewer probably hadn’t even considered prior to the interview, which then results in a huge nugget of wisdom neither participant had expected to cover.

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