How To Do An Interview

Do you want to interview someone for work, like the newspaper, magazine, online platform, or do you have to interview the next job candidate? Or are you interested in the life chapters of your niece, who is always on the road for work? Is it just the inspiration you need for the next bestselling book on being the best leaders of a healthy company? Do you need to interview people to know how your character in your next novel should behave, look like, or what that work is like the character does?

For all the above and in between, you need to know how you should do an interview.

The four W's, and an H is the key to have a successful interview, and feel the interviewer in their element too. I always use these four W's, and an H for interviewing a lot.

Who

When you start a question with 'who', you ask whether there were other people involved in a situation, event, or with you helping.

When you got a car accident years ago, and you were fully recovered after a coma of three years, someone from the local newspaper — for example — might think it is very special, especially when you

For example: “Who was there as well when you got the accident?”

In this case, were there other people in the car, on the road, who were injured too?

The 'Who' is a very important component, because you can ask more about those people who were involved in the situation, during an event, or who was helping you with the volunteering at the festival.

What

'What'-question tells you what the situation was the person was in to, or what kind of event you're reporting.

For example: “What was the event looked like a hundred years ago, in comparison to last year? What has changed?”

Or: “What was the most important CD you ever have made during your solo career?”

When you start the interview with a 'who'-question, guaranteed that the person you're talking with, is willing to reveal more information, so you can ask more and getting to know the interviewer more.

You can ask more about the other people if the answer to this 'who'-questions involve more people. Ask for what they might be kind of a person.

Where

The location is also very important to know. When you know 'where' the event took place, you know if the place was big, outside, inside, if it was a wedding, a luxury event or whatever that was, or is, the 'where'-question is very important to understand.

When you don't have a location, you are clueless what to ask next, or you barely can imagine the situation when you have a time, date, whom, and how, but no location. That is what your reader or listeners should know, too.

It is also good to be fully in informing your audience. They have the right to know all the information.

Example: “Where did your wedding take place?” or “Where was your first debut concert?”

When

Ah, I love this part of the interview very much. The 'when'-question is import to know when you have a time-lapse. When you talk with a historian about the second world war, but you don't ask when, your audience don't know which war you might be speaking of.

The 'when'-question might be the most important question to ask your interviewee. They might give you a glimpse of what they want to tell you.

Example: “When did you get married?” or “When was it when you started your music career?”

Guaranteed, the interviewee will reveal more details or more events that might refer to the same kind of situations. Then ask more about these kinds of situations.

How

One of the most important word a question should begin with is the 'How'-question. You can let the interviewee tell more about how a situation had happened.

The 'How'-questions should lead you to more information about the situation, or with whom.

Or think about when the situations had happened, or when there were more information about a situation, or even when there were more people involved in a criminal act.

Conclusions

Be friendly. Always. I love doing interviews, and I have done this since 2012. Not everyone is willing to reveal everything, but you can try, at least that is your job as a journalist.