Conducting a Succesful Interview

Recently, I was asked for an interview. Having never been interviewed before nor done an interview of another person, I gulped and started reading everything I could find on conducting interviews. I knew that there had to be a secret somewhere in the piles of books I brought home from the library. Nothing was standing out, they all had different lists of questions to ask, what questions not to ask and even the difference between open questions and closed questions. I certainly got a crash course on the do's and don't s of interviewing, but I had yet to find the secret I was searching for.

Desperate I called a friend (who is not in the writing business nor ever aspired to be) for advice. She laughed and replied mockingly, "well your the writer, what would you ask?". Thinking I did not have the secret answer still, I started to Google and read every interview I could find on the net (325,000,000 articles later)when I gave up. The next morning I decided to try an new approach. I was going to find out who this person was that wanted to interview me and why they wanted to.

I conducted a thorough research on the person, where they went to school, how long they had been working in journalism, and where their favorite coffee stop was. When the day arrived and the person called to confirm the appointment, I was armed and ready. "Say why don't we meet at joe's Coffee Shop and grab a cup of coffee while you do what ever it is that you do." I suddenly was the interviewer in control of the process.

By doing my homework and researching the other person, I knew exactly how to take them out of their business mind set into a relaxing environment. By making the suggestion that I had no idea of how to write or conduct an interview, I bolstered the person's ego simply deferring the word interview to an unexplainable event.