Lots of advice about interviewing is a variation on the same theme. Do your homework. Plan ahead. Ask open-ended questions. All good suggestions. But a few tips that are rarely shared may be just as useful.
Dean Nelson is an expert on interviewing. He directs the annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea and has written for publications from the New York Times to Sojourners Magazine. In a piece for Quill, the SPJ magazine, Nelson shared this practical advice for what to do before the interview starts:
- Arrive early. The person you’re there to interview might give you a few extra minutes.
- Dress appropriately. For Nelson, that means “business casual.” If you’re too casual, you send a message that you’re not taking the interview seriously. Too formal suggests you’ve never done this before.
- Go. To the bathroom. “When you have just 20 minutes, you don’t want to have to interrupt the interview for a bodily function,” he writes. “Besides, it’s tacky.”
Nelson cites the movie Almost Famous as a great illustration of how interviewing works. The takeaway, he says, is that “most of the time, people will talk to you when you’re prepared, when they trust you and when you listen to them.”
Nelson’s latest book is all about interviewing: Talk to Me: How to Ask Better Questions, Get Better Answers, and Interview Anyone Like a Pro.
