With nearly 50 percent of companies looking to increase content Marketing staff, hiring interviews are aplenty. The success of outsourced agency or freelancer work is often predicated on the quality of the Interview that sets project expectations. So whether it’s interview-style guest posts, podcasts, hiring freelancers, or growing your content marketing team,it’s worth developing a killer interview skill set. Here are several ways to refine your interviewing acumen.

Say No to Yes or No 

Open-ended questions create the chance for your interview to furnish interesting and surprising information. Yes or no questions tend to only fit into your immediate narrative (which may be biased). They also remove the opportunity to collect deeper insights that, as a writer, could be used for additional content later down the line.

Hedge Your Bias

Raw interview responses make for the best responses. Asking a leading question can route the mind of an interviewee away from their true disposition. This can damage the credibility of the interviewer, the interview itself, and/or the quality of any related projects.

Let it Soak

A seam of silence during an interview is a good thing. Provide a pause after each question and response. This allows the interviewee a moment to make sure they’ve cleared their thoughts, and provides a chance to develop note and thought indexing. Additionally, this tempo helps facilitate the first two tips, as explained by Katie McKenna of Portent:

Pausing also slows down the rate at which you ask questions. Having this extra time will help you be more mindful of the types of questions you’re asking, which should help you reduce bias and avoid close-ended questions.

Have some interviews coming up? Check out the rest of McKenna’s tips below.

Read the source article at Digital Marketing Agency

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