Interviewing Techniques
An interview is a method for gathering information which is normally used in qualitative research as you get access to rich and quality information. Interviews are used in many fields such as user experience research, market research, counselling, employment and other business related areas such as interviewing a potential client.
Reciprocal nature of interviewing
Interviewing has a reciprocal nature which means both sides influence one another profoundly. This includes mood which can be explained by the psychological phenomenon called social facilitation.According to social facilitation, we tend to act like the models around us. This means if the interviewer is tense or angry, the interviewee tends to act in a similar fashion. It is therefore important for a good interviewer to facilitate a safe environment by being warm and accepting through social facilitation. Similarly, a good interviewer must be in control of the interview and aware of the social facilitation impact and should not allow to be affected by the interviewee’s negative mood.
It’s all about the attitude
Good interviewing is more of attitude that skill. It is through warmth, openness as well as interpersonal attraction that the interviewee builds a rapport with the interviewer and openly and non-defensively answers to the questions. By making judgemental or evaluative statements, we put people on guard which results in them not revealing important information. Probing statements such as “why” questions should also be avoided as they demand explanations for the interviewer’s behaviour which could be interpreted as judgemental. The information you want to extract with the “why” questions can still be obtained with better strings of words such as “Tell me more about what happened” or “How do you happen to say that”.
Effective responses
Interviews are conducted for gathering information from interviewees and in order to do so, you need to keep the interaction flowing. This can be done a lot easier with open-ended questions such as “tell me more about how you organise your shopping list” as opposed to closed-ended questions such as “Do you like online shopping”. A closed-ended question brings the interview to a halt which violates the principle of keeping the interaction flowing.
Other than open-ended questions, the interviewer’s good responses can help to keep the interview flowing. The use of transitional phrases, such as “Yes” and “I see” as well as verbatim playback, which repeats the interviewee’s exact words are some examples of effective responses. Paraphrasing and clarifications are other methods of effective responding. Finally, empathyis the type of responding which shows you understand how the interviewee feels which demonstrates you care which ultimately makes you close to the interviewee and builds rapport.
Developing interviewing skills
Familiarising yourself with interviewing principles is the first step in acquiring interviewing skills.
Practising under supervision is the second step in learning such skills.
The third step is making an effort to ensure you apply the relevant principles at all times. This can be achieved by self and peer-evaluation .
