"In common parlance, the word 'interview' refers to a one-on-one conversation between an interviewer and an interviewee."
Learning how to conduct effective interviews with chefs, restaurateurs, and other food industry professionals to extract the best stories.
Types of Interviews: Understanding the different types of interviews, such as conversational interviews, formal interviews, and group interviews, will help in determining the approach to take when conducting an interview.
Preparation: This involves researching the person or topic to be interviewed, creating a list of potential questions, and practicing possible scenarios to ensure that the interviewer has enough knowledge to ask relevant questions.
Interview Techniques: Knowing the right questions to ask, using open-ended questions, and understanding how to get the interviewee to open up are key techniques for conducting a successful interview.
Listening Skills: Active listening helps in picking up on nuances that may give insight into the interviewee's personality or opinions.
Follow-Up: Proper follow-up after an interview is essential in building a strong relationship with the interviewee and ensuring accuracy in reporting.
Ethics: Understanding ethical concerns related to interviewing, such as confidentiality, honesty, and impartiality, is important in building a reputation as a trustworthy journalist or food writer.
Body Language: Reading and understanding the body language of interviewees can help in determining whether they are comfortable with the questions being asked.
Improvisation: Being able to think on one's feet and adapt to changing circumstances during an interview is an important skill to possess.
Writing Skills: Translating an interview into engaging and informative writing requires strong writing skills, including the ability to structure an article and write in a clear, engaging style.
Industry-specific knowledge: Acquiring specific knowledge related to food writing or journalism, such as understanding the difference between writing for print and online, is important when starting to learn about interviewing techniques in these industries.
Traditional or Standard Interviews: Consist of open-ended questions and follow-up queries, allowing the interviewee to provide in-depth responses.
Behavioral Interviews: Focus on specific situations and require job candidates to provide concrete examples of how they handled situations in the past.
Group Interviews: Multiple candidates are interviewed at once, which allows employers to observe how the candidates interact with each other.
Phone Interviews: Screening interview conducted over the telephone to assess basic qualifications and weed out unqualified candidates.
Skype or Video Interviews: Similar to phone interviews, but the interviewer and candidate can see each other. It provides additional insight into candidates' body language and facial expressions.
Panel Interviews: Conducted with a group of interviewers, each assessing a different aspect of a candidate's qualification.
Case Interviews: Used to evaluate critical thinking and problem-solving skills for consulting jobs. Candidates are given a hypothetical business problem to solve and are evaluated on their approach.
Stress Interviews: These are deliberately conducted in a high-pressure environment, and some interviewers may adopt an aggressive or confrontational approach.
Informal Interviews: Also known as "casual" or "coffee-shop" interviews. They allow the interviewer and candidate to have an informal discussion over coffee or lunch.
Situational Interviews: Used to evaluate practical application and problem-solving abilities, usually in high-pressured situations.
Exit Interviews: Conducted with employees departing a company to determine why they are leaving and to solicit feedback on the company culture or management style.
Audition interviews: Used in the writing and journalism field, candidates are usually asked to submit a writing sample or take on an interview subject and provide a story.
Research interviews: Interviews conducted to gather background material for a story. It may involve interviewing experts or taking a deep dive into multiple secondary sources.
Profile interviews: Involves getting subjects to open up about themselves and their personal experiences, including emotional responses to events or situations.
Investigative interviews: Used to uncover hidden or undisclosed information about a particular event or subject.
"The interviewer asks questions to which the interviewee responds, usually providing information."
"A job interview or interview with a witness to an event may have no other audience present at the time, but the answers will be later provided to others in the employment or investigative process."
"An interview may also transfer information in both directions."
"Interviews usually take place face-to-face, in person."
"Interviews may be separated geographically, as in videoconferencing or telephone interviews."
"Interviews almost always involve spoken conversation between two or more parties."
"In some instances, a 'conversation' can happen between two persons who type their questions and answers."
"Interviews can be unstructured, free-wheeling and open-ended conversations without predetermined plan or prearranged questions."
"One form of unstructured interview is a focused interview in which the interviewer consciously and consistently guides the conversation so that the interviewee's responses do not stray from the main research topic or idea."
"Interviews can also be highly structured conversations in which specific questions occur in a specified order."
"They can follow diverse formats; for example, in a ladder interview, a respondent's answers typically guide subsequent interviews, with the object being to explore a respondent's subconscious motives."
"Typically, the interviewer has some way of recording the information that is gleaned from the interviewee, often by keeping notes with a pencil and paper, or with a video or audio recorder."
"The traditionally two-person interview format, sometimes called a one-on-one interview, permits direct questions and follow-ups, which enables an interviewer to better gauge the accuracy and relevance of responses."
"It is a flexible arrangement in the sense that subsequent questions can be tailored to clarify earlier answers."
"Further, it eliminates possible distortion due to other parties being present."