Regardless your niche, interviews are an impressive source of traffic. It works pretty well if your guest is someone to rely upon for authenticity, expertise and popularity. For instance, if you are blogging about blogging, you can get an established and famous blogger as the guest. Likewise, if you’re into the tech world, you might conduct an interview with a company’s CEO.
Interviewing Mistakes
In addition to the benefit of traffic, Blog Interviews will help you enrich your professional network. Nevertheless, to get these benefits, you should your guest well! That said, newbie professionals make some interviewing mistakes, and such mistakes are not good for their connections or career.
In this article, we are here with an article about common interviewing mistakes done by professionals. We have also mentioned some effective ways to overcome these mistakes. After all, you do learn from mistakes, don’t you?
1. You ARE NOT Really Prepared
When you conduct an interview, you should have a clear idea about the flow. You should know how to introduce the guest to audience, make way for questions etc. On top of all these, as an interviewer, you must be clear about those questions to be asked. If you fail to get one of these, it’s a big mistake. When you are sitting in front of the guest, you cannot have any excuses. So, not being really prepared is a common mistake made by newbie interviewers.
The Solution — Once you have decided your guest and time, you should start your preparation. As we said, you must know an expected output of the interview. That is, you should know what your audience must get from an interview. According to that expectation, you can prepare for interview. You should have a list of questions to be asked and the way of asking questions. In short, you should not search for words when you are in front of the guest.
2. You ARE Being Too Nervous
Being nervous is natural, but it isn’t good when you are doing an interview. We do agree with the fact that the guest may be an admirable figure. You may have huge respect for the individual, as a person or as a professional. Despite all these, you should not become nervous during the interview. It will have a bad impact over your interview as well as the guest’s impression.
The Solution — Regardless all the admiration you have, consider the guest as a human being. Then, you will be able to communicate with him quite easily. You can talk to him or her as if you are talking to your friend. Unless you don’t go over-friendly, the interview is going to be pretty fine.
3. You ARE NOT Recording the Interview
4. You ARE NOT Listening
Not listening during the interview is not just a mistake. It’s a biggest sign of how unprofessional you are. Obviously, it is going to create a negative impression in the guest about you, your blog and the interview itself. And, it isn’t cool to say “Come again” when you are interviewing someone important. If you beg pardon for not listening once, it is okay. However, if you go beyond that limit, you should be careful. Apart from the impression, professionalism, the act of not listening can bring you another trouble. In case if you are half-listening, you may miss something important.
The Solution — It’s simple. You should be 100% concentrated when you are interviewing someone. And, make sure that you are following the solution for previous question. Just in case.
5. You ARE Over-Explaining Your Questions
Of course, you will have many questions to ask the guest. However, if you become nervous, you may start explaining your questions for no reason. This is, quite notably, a major mistake committed by some newbies. This can have bad impact on the interview and the mood of the guest. Personally speaking, most experts hate that over-explaining. Another reason why over-explaining should be avoided is that it can badly affect the flow of your interview.
The Solution — Your questions have to be crisp, quick and on to the point. Practically speaking, you should not take a minute or two for asking a question that is small enough. And, after all, you are speaking to an expert and you can cut down the explanation part. By the way, if you are using your notebook to ask the questions, make sure that you don’t write the entire question. Instead, write just the major keyword and create the shortest question instantly. It’s going to be effective, we bet.
6. You ARE Shooting Questions Continuously
Well, we understand that you’ll have many questions to ask. However, if you ask your questions continuously, it isn’t a good thing for your interview. The case is worst if you ask the next question even before your guest has completed the previous answer.
The Solution — Before shooting the next question, give your guest enough time. Or, alternatively, make sure that he or she is finished with the answer. In some cases, if you give extra time, the guest may have some additional stuff to talk about. It sounds great, doesn’t it?
7. You ARE Intervening the Answers
It isn’t right if you take your guest for granted. It is not a good habit to intervene the answers. Even if you know what he/she is talking about, you should keep silence until it’s completed.
The Solution — As simple as that, You must not Intervene.
Conclusion
So, above, we have talked about the seven interviewing mistakes that are made by professionals. Now that you have found out the mistakes and their solutions, it’s time to change your way of conducting interview. We are sure that, if you follow the suggestions, you will get a better output from the guest. Along with that, you will be able to keep the relation intact and sustainable. By the way, have you made any other kinds of mistakes while conducting interviews for your blog? Free feel to share those mistakes and the solutions via comments.
