Speaker A
So, interviewing is is an art, um, but I don't treat it that way.
Learn how to interview almost anyone with practical tips on preparation, listening, and creating meaningful conversations from Mike Dronkers.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
Generated from the transcript and can be wrong — check the timestamp.
Key Takeaways
- Do thorough prep including researching and listening to past verbal interviews.
- Use follow-up questions based on previous interviews to deepen the conversation.
- Icebreakers should be relevant and help guests relax.
- Listen actively and avoid interrupting or planning ahead during the interview.
- Embrace silence to encourage guests to share more candidly.
What the video covers
- Interviewing is an art but can be approached as a skill focused on listening and preparation rather than expertise.
- Preparation is key: research your guest via Google and find previous verbal interviews to understand their style and topics.
- Use the 'Terry Gross move' by following up on answers from other interviews to create engaging questions.
- Avoid relying on email interviews as they are often scripted; verbal interviews reveal more authentic responses and social cues.
- Icebreakers work well when relevant and help guests feel comfortable and open up.
- Active listening is crucial: focus fully on the guest without planning your next question or interrupting.
- Silence or 'dead air' can encourage guests to reveal unexpected insights, but use it carefully.
- The biggest tip is to shut up and give the guest space to talk at their own pace.
- These techniques help you fake competence and build meaningful conversations even without deep subject expertise.
- The goal is to create a casual, comfortable environment that encourages honesty and human connection.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
So, let's put it like this, like this is basically a talk about not talking.
Speaker A
I work at a very eclectic community radio station and we're really lucky.
Speaker A
We talk to all kinds of people, yeah, there's bands that come through, that's great, I can hang with that, but authors, read a fucking book.
Speaker A
I don't know either.
Speaker A
But the thing is, I have to have this conversation with them and I want it to be good and meaningful.
Speaker A
I really do.
Speaker A
And I want to know what makes them tick.
Speaker A
The problem is, I'm not an expert in fluvial geomorphology.
Speaker A
And the truth is, in this life, you get to be an expert in like one, maybe two things, max, okay?
Speaker A
So how do you get through this?
Speaker A
What I want to talk to you today about is how to fake your way through an interview.
Speaker A
And hopefully have a great conversation on the other side of it, okay?
Speaker A
Now, I did get some on-the-job training, it was very sparse.
Speaker A
Um, and the the woman who was training me, she sort of walked me through the building.
Speaker A
I was going to be on the air in a week.
Speaker A
And she's like, here's how you do this, here's how you do this.
Speaker A
Oh, and you're going to be interviewing people.
Speaker A
And I'm like, oh, okay.
Speaker A
I get a pen out, right?
Speaker A
She's like, here's how you do that, you just shut up.
Speaker A
I put the pen away.
Speaker A
She's like, you just shut up, you got that?
Speaker A
I got that.
Speaker A
Uh, and that was 15 years ago, I still got that.
Speaker A
It's fantastic advice.
Speaker A
And there's a couple other tricks that I want to share with you.
Speaker A
There's there's about six little ones and then one massive one.
Speaker A
So let's do this.
Speaker A
Here's how you interview almost anyone.
Speaker A
Trick number one, do some prep.
Speaker A
Come on, don't be that guy who is like, I'm just going to wing it, man.
Speaker A
And I'm looking at podcasters mostly for this.
Speaker A
There's this scourge of people who think that they can sit down and hold their own.
Speaker A
And they can't.
Speaker A
Uh, nobody is that good.
Speaker A
Nobody is that good, okay?
Speaker A
And secondly, it's a little arrogant and vain to think that you are.
Speaker A
So show your guest, it's true.
Speaker A
Show your guest the basic dignity of a Google search.
Speaker A
It's not hard, do it on your phone.
Speaker A
I don't care when you do it, just do it.
Speaker A
Okay, so number two.
Speaker A
You are going to be doing some prep.
Speaker A
I suggest, since that author is coming in and you may not have read the whole book.
Speaker A
Or like maybe even half of it.
Speaker A
They're going to need you to know about it.
Speaker A
So what you do is you find interviews they already did.
Speaker A
And somebody else can do the work for you.
Speaker A
Now, I'm not saying, I'm not saying steal their questions.
Speaker A
Because that's wrong.
Speaker A
But I am saying you can use the answers that they gave earlier.
Speaker A
As your jumping off point, okay?
Speaker A
We call this the Terry Gross move.
Speaker A
You guys know who Terry Gross is.
Speaker A
Okay, she's fantastic.
Speaker A
And she said this was a stealable move, I was in the room.
Speaker A
She said you can have it, okay?
Speaker A
Um, so what that looks like when you take, you're basically following up on somebody else's question.
Speaker A
So if that person is on NPR.
Speaker A
And that person says, well, my workflow goes like this, I wake up at 7:05.
Speaker A
Then I do hot yoga.
Speaker A
Then I'm in the office by nine.
Speaker A
You can use that answer and you can pick it apart.
Speaker A
You can say, 7:05?
Speaker A
Like, what normal person sets an alarm for 7:05?
Speaker A
It's 7:00, 7:30.
Speaker A
Why that?
Speaker A
And then they will tell you, well, you know, I did the math, this is how long it takes me to get to the bathroom.
Speaker A
And then the shower takes this long.
Speaker A
And then you're off to the races, okay?
Speaker A
So 7:05, that's the Terry Gross move.
Speaker A
Follow up.
Speaker A
All right.
Speaker A
Now, um, if you're going to be finding interviews with people.
Speaker A
This is, uh, my personal favorite.
Speaker A
And I hope that you remember this and steal it.
Speaker A
You can have it.
Speaker A
It goes like this.
Speaker A
Find verbal interviews.
Speaker A
When you read in Rolling Stone or some blog, an interview, the odds are very high that that interview was done over email.
Speaker A
So they're thinking their answers out.
Speaker A
It's all calculated.
Speaker A
It's tactical.
Speaker A
You don't want that.
Speaker A
You want the verbal things where you get the social cues and the intangibles that they're going to bring to you.
Speaker A
Like a normal human in a normal human conversation.
Speaker A
Where you know if they're nervous and you can help them.
Speaker A
If you know that they're going to be nervous.
Speaker A
You can see it and you can predict it.
Speaker A
Okay, so another thing they'll telegraph to you, uh, in these other interviews that you're listening to.
Speaker A
Do they speak too fast?
Speaker A
Are they walled off?
Speaker A
Do they have a stutter, a lisp?
Speaker A
Like you want to know all this going in.
Speaker A
So find verbal interviews.
Speaker A
Now the sidebar to that, this is a great thing.
Speaker A
As an interviewer, you really, really want to hear these words.
Speaker A
How did you even know that?
Speaker A
That's what you want to hear.
Speaker A
And if you can find these sort of, uh, small-time interviews.
Speaker A
These verbal interviews that they've done, right?
Speaker A
If you're going on NBC in the morning, you are going to stay up all night practicing.
Speaker A
But if you were going on a high school radio station in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Speaker A
You were going to phone it in from your car on your way to pick up your kids, right?
Speaker A
You're going to forget everything you said on that interview.
Speaker A
So those are the ones you want to find, the little tiny ones where the stakes are very low and they're very casual.
Speaker A
Because all these tips that I'm trying to give you set a stage for a person to be casual, comfortable and human.
Speaker A
So find the little ones because when you bring up the thing that they forgot they told the high school DJ in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Speaker A
They will tell you, how did you even know that?
Speaker A
And then they loosen up even more because things are going good.
Speaker A
First three tips, that's all beforehand.
Speaker A
Second three tips are going to be during the interview.
Speaker A
Number one.
Speaker A
I hate to even say it, but icebreakers.
Speaker A
They totally work.
Speaker A
Your summer camp counselor was right, okay?
Speaker A
And the trick that you want to do is when you are breaking the ice with somebody you don't know.
Speaker A
Especially when they're way out of your league.
Speaker A
Is make it relevant, camouflage it.
Speaker A
So if you're talking to a fluvial geomorphologist.
Speaker A
I and I have.
Speaker A
She was awesome.
Speaker A
It's great.
Speaker A
You can ask things like, what was your major in college?
Speaker A
It's relevant, but not really.
Speaker A
It's an icebreaker.
Speaker A
And they go, oh yeah, you know, I, well, I went into college as a poetry major, but then I switched to geology.
Speaker A
What?
Speaker A
Like, how how do you connect that?
Speaker A
And you ask her that and she will connect poetry to geology.
Speaker A
And it's beautiful, okay?
Speaker A
So don't fear the icebreaker, it'll work for you.
Speaker A
Last two little things before we get to the big one.
Speaker A
Number one.
Speaker A
Is, uh, listen, which is harder and harder and harder.
Speaker A
Everything in this world is trying to shorten your attention span.
Speaker A
And everything is winning at that.
Speaker A
Everything is winning.
Speaker A
And if you're not listening to me right now, I feel you.
Speaker A
Um, but try to focus in and and don't do these corny things.
Speaker A
Of like trying to think of your next question while they're still talking.
Speaker A
Listen completely and be there.
Speaker A
Be present.
Speaker A
Uh, don't try to get a joke in.
Speaker A
And certainly do not step on their answer.
Speaker A
Give them the time, okay?
Speaker A
So, so you want to listen and you can only listen if you, last one.
Speaker A
Shut up.
Speaker A
She was right.
Speaker A
It comes back to shutting up and giving them some breathing room.
Speaker A
So that they can say their piece at a tempo they're cool with.
Speaker A
And there's a fun sidebar to the shut up thing, which is this.
Speaker A
Uh, dead air chicken.
Speaker A
Does that make sense just right off the bat?
Speaker A
No, okay.
Speaker A
So dead air chicken works like this.
Speaker A
It can go on.
Speaker A
And I will win.
Speaker A
Because when you create an awkward pause that is awkward enough.
Speaker A
The thing that they will desperately fill it with burbles up from a wild part of their psychology.
Speaker A
That they cannot control at all.
Speaker A
And this is where you get your unpredictable stuff.
Speaker A
So dead air chicken, do proceed with caution though.
Speaker A
All right.
Speaker A
So now these things will get you through an interview.
Speaker A
They will get you through to the other side and you will kind of appear competent.
Speaker A
Because you kind of are at this point.
Speaker A
But it won't give you the conversation that you want to have.
Speaker A
The one that people will email you later about and say, man, I didn't think fluvial.
Speaker A
What is it?
Speaker A
I didn't know that was my thing.
Speaker A
So they will email you this if you can set the table for your guest to be comfortable.
Speaker A
You know when you're at a party.
Speaker A
And you are explaining your job to somebody else or your passion to somebody else.
Speaker A
And they're just leaning in and in and in and they're like, bring it, bring it.
Speaker A
I want to know everything you can tell me.
Speaker A
That is the real trick.
Speaker A
Bored people are boring.
Speaker A
Interested people are interesting.
Speaker A
So what I'm trying to tell you is be interested in everything possible, right?
Speaker A
Everything at all.
Speaker A
Curiosity is a muscle.
Speaker A
And I'm not the most curious person by any stretch.
Speaker A
But I have found that the ROI on curiosity, man, that pays for itself.
Speaker A
Because you, if you can put yourself in uncomfortable positions, if you can, like for me, it looks like, um.
Speaker A
You know, sort of cultivating curiosity, I, I try to diversify my media.
Speaker A
I try to listen to genres of music I don't like.
Speaker A
Free jazz.
Speaker A
What the hell, free jazz?
Speaker A
I want to know what people see in free jazz.
Speaker A
I don't get it.
Speaker A
But I listen to it sometimes.
Speaker A
And and it's it's sort of rewarding.
Speaker A
But it gives me practice at being uncomfortable with things I don't know about.
Speaker A
So, I guess what I'm trying to say here is that if you can be interested in everything.
Speaker A
As much as possible.
Speaker A
It makes your life better.
Speaker A
Not just when you're at work having to interview fluvial geomorphologists, right?
Speaker A
Uh, because you will find that you can hang with most conversations.
Speaker A
Because you are bought in, you are genuinely interested in what you are being told.
Speaker A
You are learning.
Speaker A
And there's an Emerson quote.
Speaker A
He says.
Speaker A
Every man I meet is my superior in some way.
Speaker A
And in that I learn from him.
Speaker A
And that is in my experience completely true.
Speaker A
I think about it a lot.
Speaker A
And I have talked to Oscar winners.
Speaker A
Um, I have talked to hobos who live in a bush.
Speaker A
And like.
Speaker A
They're equally interesting to me.
Speaker A
Their narrative matters.
Speaker A
And if I can sort of set the table for them to to tell me how they are the good guy in their own movie.
Speaker A
That's all I want.
Speaker A
And that's all they want.
Speaker A
And time after time, if you can get to that point in your your discussions and your interviews.
Speaker A
You will find that you walk away a better person.
Speaker A
So, to conclude.
Speaker A
Um, do the tips, you know, do some, do some prep.
Speaker A
Seriously, do that.
Speaker A
Use the icebreaker, find the verbal interviews.
Speaker A
Do all that stuff.
Speaker A
But if you can make curiosity your hobby.
Speaker A
If you can become an expert in curiosity.
Speaker A
If that's your one area of expertise, you will find that every single person is worth listening to.
Speaker A
And you're going to walk away better.
Speaker A
And don't forget to shut up.
Topics:interviewinginterview tipsMike DronkersTEDx Talksconversation skillsactive listeningpreparationicebreakersdead airTerry Gross move
