Interview – You will be tasked to find a professional in the career of your choice and interview them. You will have to use those social media stalking skills, reach out via email, schedule Zoom meetings, organize a phone call- find a way to talk to a person in your field...this is imperative for you to understand what it takes to be in the career of your choice and to really weigh if this option is right for you.  You will need to construct 10-12 questions prior to the interview. In this section, you will explain what you learned from your interviewee. The interview should be written as a narrative – a story – not a series of questions and answers.  You goal is to provide information from an “insider’s” point of view.  

Writing Interview Questions

1

Do your research on the person.

Before you can write out good questions, you need to gather all the information you can.

Knowing who this person is, accomplishments, failures, and personality will allow you to formulate solid questions that can get you the best results.

Search for your professional online and see if there are other articles about this person. Write a bio of your interviewee. Highlight specific milestones that you want to talk about.

2

Write down your objective for the interview.

Create questions before the interview that can steer the conversation in the right direction. Your objective will also help you stay on track if the conversation goes in a different direction than your questions.

3

Lead with a “softball question”. 

When writing out your questions, you want to create ones that allow the conversation or interview to flow naturally. Since you're interviewing someone you look up to, you want to create a question that is easy to answer will set the tone for the interview.

A “softball question” will help the interviewee become relaxed and open up. This type of question should be simple and not controversial in any way. This question shouldn’t be challenging and let your role model brag a little about the work.

4

Ask about strategies, process, methods for achieving goals. 

Write down a list of questions that pertain to what you've learned about this person.  You'll want to start with a list of questions that when answered can give you basic knowledge on the topic.

For example, if your role model is a doctor, you may want to create a list of questions that ask about how many years of schooling it took to become a doctor. What subjects did your role model have to study? How did this person stay on track with the goal of becoming a doctor?

5

Use your knowledge to tailor specific questions.

Write out some questions that are specific to the professional's life, past experiences, goals, achievements, and even failures.

When writing out your questions, think about what you know of this person. You can create questions that dig deep and aren't simply generic.

You've already gotten the generic questions out of the way. Now you want questions that illicit an emotional response and give you insight.

6

Create open-ended questions.

Go through the questions you've written down and make sure that you've created questions that can't be answered by a "yes" or "no".

Ask open-ended questions. You’re interviewing a person to gain knowledge of a subject and to be more like this person. Have a conversation.

You can ask questions like “What was your favorite part of …” asking what this person liked or didn’t like about the subject you’re interviewing for will give you much more insightful information to go on.

When writing your questions, put yourself in your role model's shoes. Imagine yourself being interviewed by someone who looks up to you in the future. Think about what kinds of topics you would want to talk about. What would you want to share and what kinds of stories and advice would you provide?

7

(Optional) Ask questions that elicit an emotional response.

Just like open ended questions, you’ll want to come up with a few that will get you an emotional response.

When writing your interview questions, see if you can find anything about your subject that you can use to get a feeling-based response. Did this person have career or personal setbacks before succeeding? How can you get them to describe their feelings about that time?

If you can’t find anything, be prepared to formulate a question on the spot during the interview. Use what’s been discussed in the interview and write down this new question quickly so you don’t forget. Make sure to ask “why” and “how”.

”Why did you feel like you would never reach your goal?” “What motivated you to keep trying when you hit speed bumps?” “How do you feel about that experience now?