Introduction
**Unlock the Art of Interviewing!**
Interviewing isn’t just a skill; it’s an art!
But let’s be real—most people miss the mark.
So, what’s the secret sauce to turn a stiff chat into an engaging dialogue?
In this episode, Miklas Svall, the mastermind behind Montanus, takes us on a whirlwind tour of the interviewing world.
Get ready to discover four killer strategies that will elevate your interviews—whether online or in person.
Here’s a sneak peek:
– Master the art of listening.
– Ditch those lengthy question lists.
– Skip the note-taking.
– And yes, let your personality shine!
Plus, stay tuned for a bonus trick that sparks genuine conversations as the interview wraps up!
Are you fired up to revolutionize your interviewing skills?
Hit play and let Miklas open your eyes to a whole new way of connecting! 🚀
What You’ll Learn
1. How to listen effectively for more engaging interviews.
2. Why fewer questions lead to richer conversations.
3. The secret behind impactful, note-free interviewing.
4. How personal anecdotes enhance interview rapport.
5. A simple trick to unlock impactful guest insights.
Episode Transcript (AI Generated)
Hello, and welcome to this episode of the Content Universe, which is of course this little blog, vlog style, podcast, blog I tend to call it, where I go through some of the things that I experience every day and, and try and dig out some of the learnings that I think you might be interested in. Now, today, I want to talk a little bit about interview techniques, because I have just conducted an interview. It was an online interview for a podcast. And I think, to many people, interviewing is is something that is really hard. And it, indeed, it does take some practice. Now, just in short, my name is Miklas Svall and I’m the owner and founder of Montanus, a content company where we produce podcasts and blog posts and social media, etc. for businesses, typically in the high end of the knowledge scale. Now, coming back to this interview style, I think I have four things that I would recommend you do when you need, when you’re the host conducting an interview. And maybe they seem trivial, but I think, for at least some of them, it’ll take some practice before you feel really comfortable and at home in doing so and using them. Now, the interview that I had today was an online interview, but these techniques that I use, at least, they are completely applicable also if it’s a live interview or a face-to-face interview, a physical face-to-face interview, physical? Is that what you would say? I don’t know. It’s the same techniques anyway. I think the big difference between the online interview and the live interview… An online interview is also live. I don’t know what to call these. Face-to-face interviews. I think they’re a couple of big differences, but one of the main big differences is that you don’t really have that… You don’t have the feeling of the person that you’re interviewing. You can’t read the body language as well and vice versa. They can’t read your body language as well either, which of course means that for instance, when you talk to someone and you just raise your hand slightly because you are about to interrupt them and ask the next question, they can’t necessarily see that when you’re online, which basically means that you’d have to often times really interrupt a little bit harder. So, you’d have to be a little bit more rude or you’d have to find some other way of communicating that that now we need to move on to the next question. So, that’s one thing I think, one positive thing with conducting online interviews rather than face to face interviews is that online people are so used to sitting in front of their screen looking into their little webcam camera and they’re so used to these online meetings. So even though we do use another software than teams when we record an online interview use a dedicated software called Riverside and even though we do that, it still feels a little bit more familiar to the person that you’re interviewing compared to you know we meet up maybe at a studio, maybe at a you know, at a meeting room, but you’d have you know three cameras standing there, you have lights, you have everything you will maybe have backdrops, all kinds of things and the huge microphone and all this stuff if it’s for a podcast at least. So you’d have a completely other setup and you also probably have other people in the room. So that can be a little bit frightening and when you haven’t really sat in front of a camera before. Okay, but anyway, that was a little detour, sorry about that. I think the four things that I want to share with you that is really crucial for getting a good interview the first of all, the first is I must say it’s really obvious but it’s basic to me at least. It’s the hardest one. You simply have to listen to the answers. Number one in conducting an interview is listen to what they answer. And the reason why this is so important is that if you don’t listen really carefully, you can’t ask follow up questions. You can’t ask or you also can’t delete you know later questions because they’ve already answered them. So you really do need to listen to what they say and that should be your like if you can only focus on one thing that should be it. You just listen to what they say because that will really help you engage in the more natural conversation. Also for yourself even though you are seasoned interviewer it will still help you just engage in completely normal human interaction. So listen to what they answer so you can ask follow up questions. And that leads me to the next one. I tend to not have many questions. So for half an hour interview I would maybe have ten questions written down and those would be overarching questions and what I know that I can always do is i can nearly always ask a question that asks people to elaborate something a little bit more. I can nearly always as them to give an example or explain it in another way which by the way is also a trick, if you forgot to listen for a second, you know, that’s a really good card to play is can you can rephrase that you can say. Or can you can you give an example, because then you can kind of pick up what was said they were saying. There’s a little trick for you. But have few questions, especially if you are not a seasoned interviewer because simply it will make it so much easier for you rather than having to look down into questions all the time. So you can basically focus on listening instead. And that brings us to tip number three. So tip number three for me at least is don’t take notes. Now this might seem a little bit weird. But for me, if I start taking notes, I have a tendency to write down like a summary of what they said, and I’ll be so focused on jotting down things on paper, that I will again forget to listen. And I will also not be as engaged in the conversation as I probably should be. So don’t take notes. The recording is a recording, right? So you can always review it later on. But just, so you don’t have to take notes. You can take notes later on. The one thing that I do note down because I do actually take notes during the interview, but the only thing that I would write down is, you know, that one word or that short sentence that remind me of something they just said that I could ask a follow-up question on. Because sometimes, the people, the guest, they say something and then they continue talking for four minutes and then suddenly they stop because now they made their point. And then you sit there. Now it’s your ball, you have to catch it, and you’re like, oh, oh, I don’t know where to begin. And then, you know, the next question you have on your list it’s just way off-topic you know, there’s no easy segue and then if you have that one word written down you can always say, okay, Peter, you mentioned this and that. Can you try and elaborate that a little bit more? That is such a powerful question because first of all, it shows that you are actually listening to what they’re saying. But it also means that you dig, you know that one, is it called that you dig that one dig, is that what you would say? This seems like a very, like direct translation from Danish anyway, so you would dig that that little bit deeper, which of course makes the interview again, a lot more interesting and also makes your own conversation. It’s not just for the listener, but also for yourself, it makes it just more interesting. So, don’t take notes only write down keywords that will, that will remind you of what you can ask follow up questions on. Now, okay, so the last thing that I do want to want to want to bring up, and the last tip that I have is you need to bring yourself into your into the interview. At least in my experience, when I do the interview, I often, I often engage with personal anecdotes, something that I tried, you know, what just comes to mind something that maybe you know, a funny thing that I would do, for instance, today, I would, I said, because we were talking about hard decisions, and, and reacting to hard decisions, and, you know, doing the things that needs to be done. And what I said was, you know, what, when there’s an email in my email inbox, that I know, is just, it just takes energy to answer because either it’s a hard one, or it’s like something that’s just, it just takes energy. You know, those emails, come on. And sometimes what happens is that you just put you postpone, you delay, you were like, I’ll answer that tomorrow, you just you don’t do it. And that sort of example, it’s, to me, at least, it’s a perfect illustration of what we were talking about. And it’s also a perfect layup for my interviewee, to be a little bit more personal, because I’ve revealed just a little bit of myself, I’ve shown who am I, and again, an interview is just an interaction between two or more people, right? It’s a more or less controlled or directed interaction. But the more personal you can get in your interview, both from you yourself, but also from the interviewee, the better and it just to me it just makes so much, it makes an interview so much better. And it also makes your guest feel a lot more at home. Okay, those are actually the four things that I wanted to that I want to talk about today. I do actually, I just came to think about one little last thing that I really think it’s a powerful thing it’s just such a cheap trick but it’s just real fun. So, when you have an interview, say you have an hour long interview, try next time when there is like 15 minutes left, maybe even 20 minutes left. Say the words, okay, we’re nearing the end now, or we’re soon done or you know we’ve only got a few minutes left now but I want to talk about blah blah blah. Once you say those words, I promise you, it’s like magic, it’s like magic, once you say those words, once you let the guest know that time is nearly up, all the golden stuff comes because then, oh, I think what happens in their head is like oh I need to say this, oh I need also this point, oh, and this is also very important. So that’s just little bonus tip for you there. When you have an interview and no matter how long it is, way ahead of time, tell them that the interview is about to end because then is when all the golden stuff comes that happens after that point. Okay that’s it for the content universe today, I hope you enjoyed and please do follow along and we will see each other or at least listen to each other, talk, we’ll talk soon. Well talk back to me, come on, you can actually write me a comment and that will feel more like talking back to me, at least for me, I would hope you do that. Thank you so much, see you.
