I have difficulty preparing for an interview (D2).

Specific preparation: setting the scene
• Background. Consider the background of your respondent:

• Do you know what your respondent’s (interest) position is in the organisation;
• Specify why this particular person is important for your interview. If you do not know about his/her background, allow some time during the interview to ask the respondent to explain this.

• Objectives. Set your interview objectives. Link them to the stage of the research that you are in (see above). Write down your objectives in short statements.

• State your possible ‘biases’, ‘hopes’, ‘fears’ and expectations regarding the interview. Doing this should enable you to avoid ‘reductive listening’ (D3)

• Think about how you could establish a ‘barter’ system for the interview: how can you compensate for the time which your respondent has ‘lost’? (A12)

• Impression. Think about the impression that you want to make in order to obtain information that you need. Decide on the style and/or ‘tone’ of the interview:

• friendly and inquisitive: you want to know his/her answers/opinion;
• searching: asking your respondent to become actively involved in your search process;
• confrontational, posing or assertive: if you check your information by challenging the interviewee to disclose interesting information, be prepared for a debate or even an argument instead of an interview.

• Introduction. Prepare a brief introduction about the research questions and the reason for the interview. It should not last longer than two to three minutes. If you are unable to do this, there is something wrong with your research question or with your presentation skills. Compose the introduction by using a few keywords, this will ensure that your presentation is spontaneous. Do not learn it by heart. This will lessen your ability to improvise. Formulating a good introduction will give you the appearance of being well prepared. You should also agree upon the amount of time approximately available for the interview during the introduction. The actual duration of the interview is often open to last-minute changes. Be prepared to be flexible.

• Interviewers. Limit the number of people conducting the interview. When more than one person conducts an interview, be aware of the risk that the interviewee may have the feeling of being ‘cross examined’. Furthermore, unstructured questions can be contradictory which gives a bad impression of the group. If you carry out an interview with two or more people first ascertain: (1) who will be the main person asking the questions, giving the introduction and finishing the interview, (2) who is responsible for elaborating notes (everyone takes notes as a rule, but only one person should take more time to elaborate them).

Contact
Contact the person either in writing or by phone (E*): repeat the aims of your research and the reason why you would like the interview. If you yourself do not already have a reputation in your chosen field, always try to offer the name of a referee: who advised you to contact this person. Confirm the date of the interview, supply a contact address in case the interviewee needs to cancel the interview.

 

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Seven core skills

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