Anyone who thinks they can save time by whipping up five to eight standard questions and leaving the interviewee to think up really interesting answers is unfortunately completely mistaken. Standard questions usually only produce standard answers. The exceptions are the rare lucky cases in which the interviewee knows more about interviews than the person asking the question - and then also has a vested interest in a good result. This applies to the written form as well as to the oral form and especially to live interviews.
An oral interview will rarely have the exact sequence and scope of the actual conversation. Even podcast and video interviews, if they do not take place live, are often edited.
For the written form, for example in a corporate magazine, the following applies: Preparation and editing require more effort than an average magazine article in continuous text.
Not every questionnaire is an interview
If it is to be a written interview, it will often happen that your interviewer does not want an oral interview, but asks you to submit your questions in writing. Many questioners also prefer this approach because it simply means a lot less work for those involved. Unfortunately, the result is often accordingly.
This approach often does not produce as good results as a real interview. Above all, it lacks the drama of follow-up questions that arise spontaneously from the previous answers. (This, however, also requires that you have mastered the form of the interview and are able to spontaneously come up with good questions.) But even such questionnaires forex data can be designed better or worse. The result depends on skill, care and thorough research beforehand.
Here are …
11 practical tips for successful interviews
1. Ask open questions.
In all too many interviews, the questions are actually statements from the questioner that could be answered with a simple "yes" or "no." Open questions begin with "W" (Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? What for?). But that alone is not enough, of course. Questions that are too open are arbitrary. Good preparation and familiarization with the topic are therefore essential for an interview.
2. Think of a guiding principle – but no result.
What is the one central idea, the interest that guides this interview? Every interview needs a pillar, you could also call it a central thread, that guides the questioner, the interviewer and the reader through the piece. However, you should not think in advance about what your counterpart will say and what the result will be. Otherwise the questions will be too suggestive. A good interview makes the questioner's curiosity palpable, the questions leave room for surprising answers.