When you host a podcast interview, it’s your job to forge the clearest connection between your audience and your guest on your podcast. Your guest may or may not be good at speaking their mind or relating stories; they might use jargon or reference concepts your audience doesn’t know; they might wander to a topic that is not at all relevant to the interview. It’s your job you lead and ensure that the transfer of information between the interviewee and your audience is as clear as it can be.
We assume you are interviewing someone for audience education or entertainment, often when a podcast is used as a strategic content asset for a business. While these rules can be helpful in journalistic interviewer, the goals there are different, and the interviewer is already professionally trained.
Here’s the guidance to keep in mind. Each one will be explained in-depth:
- Advocate for your interviewee and your audience
- Preparing your interviewee with topics
- Making your interviewee comfortable
- Be like Nardwuar
- Follow the emotion
- Ask qualitative questions
- Neurodivergent interviewees
- How to improve at these skills
First, our guiding principle:
Advocating for your interviewee is advocating for your audience
If you lead the interview in a way that shows off the interviewee in their best, most clear light, then they present well and your audience recieves their message clearly. If your interviewee uses jargon that the audience might not know, gently but firmly find a way to provide an explanation of the terms used. Use this same tactic when the interviewee doesn’t give enough context for your audience to understand the point they are making.
This action, of ensuring clarity when jargon is used or context is lacking, is advocacy both for your audience (since they need to know what the jargon means, or the context for the interviewee’s point to understand), and it’s also advocacy for your interviewee since it protects them from leaving the audience behind.
Your guest might not know how to present themselves, their knowledge or experience clearly in an interview. You need to help them do this, since you’re the interviewer; the responsibility for bringing the best out of them lies on you. The interviewee may not be experienced with appearing on media.
You need to practice tactics that will draw the best answers out of them, since you are there to serve your audience and give your audience the education or entertainment they expect from their relationship with you. When you do this, you assist in bringing clarity and great stories out of your subject, which is great for them (they’re delivering their expertise or their stories clearly) and for your audience (they are receiving the best version of the guest’s story and knowledge).
Preparing your interviewee with topics
Don’t send them the exact interview questions beforehand. Period.
If they’re comfortable with it, only send them the topic for the episode if they don’t have it already. Often, picking a topic for someone is part of the pitch to get them on your podcast in the first place. If they’d like specifics, send them the sub-topics you will ask about but do not tell them how you’ll phrase the questions. This prevents them from practicing their answers beforehand, which will make them sound stiff. Asking them the questions in a way that draws out good stories and authenticity – without putting them on the spot – will bring out the best version of themselves and that’s a win for them and your audience.
Making your interviewee comfortable
When they arrive in your recording location (virtual or physical), hold a few minutes of regular conversation whether that’s small talk or topics related to the episode. Ideally, you or your producer can quietly hit record during this time so you can seamlessly begin the interview without interrupting it to begin, and help get them comfortable in the conversation.
If you can, find some low-stakes common point of interest to bring up as they settle in (or a high-stakes one for you real mavericks). A pop culture reference works great; if they have kids, ask about them; if you have a shared background or experience, this is a great time to bring that up. Humans feel safer when we know someone identifies in one of the same groups as we do, so if you can identify even a small common ground it will go a long way to forming an actual, comfortable, conversational relationship with your interviewee right off the bat and that will give huge dividends in your conversation.
Be like Nardwuar: do deep interviewee research
Show that you know and care about your interviewee’s story. This requires quality research beforehand and an empathetic sense to know what is meaningful to them – and when the right time to reference the information is.
Spending two minutes before arrive to your interview location to Google them isn’t sufficient. This is rushed and it will show. Either you or your producer should dedicate at least 20-30 minutes to real, in-depth research and thoughtfulness to what some meaningful, niche facts are about your interviewee.
Once you have your “deep research” ready and are in the interview itself, you can’t just blurt it out to show off to them what you know; this can come across as trying too hard (yes, we tryhards doing this deep research – but we must use care and tact). Instead, hold several pieces of information in your notes that could be relevant and look for times in the interview where you can naturally bring the information up.
We don’t hide that we have this info, but the entire purpose of the deep research is to show real, actual care – not to simply impress. They’ll be impressed, but that’s a happy byproduct of us actually caring for our interviewee as a human.
A famous practitioner of deep interviewee research is famous Vancouver music journalist Nardwuar The Human Serviette (yes, that’s what he goes by). Scrub through this compilation to see the kind of research he does, and the reactions he gets:
Nardwuar takes this research to such an extreme that his guests are often shocked – and sometimes scared – that he knows the niche information he does about them. While you don’t need to shock your guest that way, using niche information regarding something meaningful to your guest will help them arrive at a place of comfort and authenticity in your interview.
A more recent practicioner of this deep research (and one who focuses on creating authentic human responses) is Sean Evans of Hot Ones ↗️, an interview show where the interviewees consume hot wings while answering questions. While the celebrity is becoming more and more physically uncomfortable due to the heat of the food, they let their guard down, become more authentic, and Sean follows up with deep knowledge about something meaningful to his guest. Often, something his guest both deeply cares about and didn’t think was public, and this results in the guest shifting out of “celebrity interview” mode and into “authentic human” mode (if they weren’t there already).
Follow the emotion
When your guest shows emotion during a response, ask a follow-up question on that subject. They might show emotion through body language (moving around, leaning forward, an increase in the range, speed, or intensity of their gestures) or through their language (“I loved that because…” / “That really affected me…” / “I really hated that…”).
We do this because an emotional response indicates something meaningful to your interview. The easiest emotional responses to chase are care and excitement, since your interviewee is already feeling good about whatever they’re discussing with you. Asking qualitative questions gets some absolutely great stories and reflection out of them, and allows your guest to remain in that happy or exciting memory for longer.
If you’re tactful enough and the interviewee trusts you, you can seek out good stories related to negative emotional responses as well. Depending on your podcast’s premise and the expectations set with your guest around the topic, this may be appropriate and a good way to draw out some of the most transformational stories and reflections.
However, use your empathy and judgement as you lead the interview and release your guest from an obligation to continue if needed. This will look different for every person in every situation, and expectations and boundaries set before you begin recording will serve you well here; but if your guest is truly uncomfortable and needs to back out of topic, provide the permission for them to do so verbally. Yes, it’s completely under their control, but as the interviewer you must release them from any real or imagined expectation that they need to push through when it’s not the right thing to do.
Again, depending on trust and expectations, pushing through something hard might be the best, most transformational moment of the interview for your guest. However, don’t chase that. Prioritize the human and your care for them. Your content isn’t worth breaking trust.
Ask qualitative questions
How you ask your questions can have a huge effect on the quality of the answer you receive. Remember, you’re running the interview; no matter how stiff or boring your interviewee might seem, it’s your job to draw the best out of them through as many tactics as you can while maintaining care and trust.
A question that can be answered with a yes or a no is, generally, the wrong question to ask (there are exceptions, but those will be clear in the moment). If you ask “Did you enjoy your time as a product manager at Google?” they might just answer “yes” or “no” or some simple answer. The most human, authentic answer – the real story behind it all – needs more than a “yes” or “no” to emerge.
Instead, ask a “how,” a “why,” a “tell me about,” or a “describe how you felt when” question about a relevant moment for your interviewee. Some examples:
- “Tell me about your favorite part of being a product manager at Google.”
- “Walk us through your worst day as a product manager at Google.”
- “What did you learn from that experience?”
When you ask meaingful qualitative questions that prompt stories and emotion, your interviewee will often respond to said prompts with stories and emotion.
Neurodivergent interviewees
If you are interviewing a deeply analytical person who doesn’t process the world using feelings or feelings language, or someone who is neurodivergent, you may need to modify your questions and to help your interviewee and draw out the clearest version of their knowledge and experiences for your audience.
For any interviewee (neurotypical or not), the care and respect for the person you’re interviewing must guide your decisions. Even when your interviewee isn’t presenting in a way your audience will be used to, if you lead the interview with care and empathy that will set the tone for your audience; remember that you’re the one in charge and that you set the example. If you don’t make a big deal out of your interviewee sounding different, most of your audience will follow your lead.
How to improve as an interviewer
Practice the above, and reflect. Dedicate actual time and resources to this, if it is actually important to you.
If you want to do this well, you can even practice interviews with friends, record them, and review them without ever releasing them. Takes notes, and send them to someone whose feedback you trust.
Even then, the stakes will be different once you’re interviewing someone for your podcast for real, especially if you’re interviewing someone who is a VIP in your world. Just remember that they’re just as human as you; and so is your audience.