(00:00) hello everyone we are going to get started with our second talk one of my favorite people in the whole world Kai talking about how to conduct wonderful interviews with people um for those of you who are just joining us this is the core skills uh track um at Dev Alcon there is also a main track we that's the one we started in and there is an unconference at the back that will run throughout today um I really don't need to take much more of this of this time so I'm going to hand the stage over to Kai a big round of applause Standing
(00:32) Ovation Round of Applause there we go thank you so much Kevin um I was fine actually this morning nerves wise and then I I should I think I should not have been allowed in for your talk cuz it reminded me that stage fright exists and now I'm like okay but I'm going to do this anyways um my name is Kai my pronouns are they them I'm a developer ER content and Technical communication specialist and I'm really good at interviews and I don't mean job interviews because I'm actually really really really bad at
(01:08) those because my nerves get the better of me and I wig out and not good do not listen to me with advice about job interviews but the type of interviews I'm actually good at is journalistic interviews to be fair I've been doing this for 20 years I have a background in journalism including nma in journalism and a background in marketing I've been creating content for over 20 years years um things like Daily News have to be done by 6 p.m.
(01:35) or the newspaper doesn't go out but also countless blog posts I have done video content from writing directing editing all the way through and live streams podcast and much much more and throughout all of my work interviews have been a really crucial part of it um they've played an important role and at the end of the day interviewing is a skill um the good thing of skills is that but they get better if you practice so today I'm going to share my interviewing secrets with you um um and I'll show you how I got good at interviewing um
(02:16) basically certain habits that I've developed over the years that help me prepare and conduct interviews with relative E I say relative because just like stage fright when you talk you always get a little bit of stage fright before interviews as well uh my way of doing this is obviously not the only way but maybe I can give you some starter ideas and just yeah help you get started and I'm also going to share why I'm good at interviews not just the how but also the why which is possibly a bit more complicated um and essentially
(02:47) boils down to why people talk to me very simply put um I'm good at interviews because people tell me things which in a personal situation is not practical I'm the type of person stranged on the street tell their life story to whether I want them to or not I just get to learn it um but it is helpful if part of your job is getting information from people um I have briefly considered a career in spycraft but I think I am not um stealthy enough just in general um but is people opening up to me based on a skill or is it something
(03:29) else I think it's certain personality traits that I have and have nurtured over the years um we'll talk about those traits why they're important and also how you can develop them so why are we talking about interviews to begin with today um what's so great about interviews interviews are a fantastic way to get content you can use them as content by publishing a recording of an interview doing a podcast um doing a live stream writing them up as blog posts but you can also use them for Content say you're working
(04:02) on something on a topic you're researching you interview a bunch of people you get some quotes to bolster your content with and so on so there are multiple ways to use them and in fact many people outside of our jobs Devils content marketers Etc use it um journalists of course but also um any good novelist writer knows that they need to do their research and interviews are a great way to do that the point is that you can't be the expert on everything so you need to learn how to get experts to tell you
(04:37) everything you have to basically become an expert and interviewing experts and I found the key to interviewing is to be prepared um the more prep I do the better I can react in the moment um of course you can't always prepare in depth for example if my job was to walk around at devil con today and tomorrow and talk to people interview them about how they're liking it get some quotes from from them I couldn't do any in-depth prep I would come up with a few questions and then I would just go in and see what I can get
(05:07) in the moment but if I'm doing a bigger in-depth interview um then I would be wasting a great opportunity if I didn't take the time to prepare first so let's have a look at some of the prep work that I do to make things easier for myself my first step is always to figure out what do I want out of this interview ask yourself why am I doing this do you want to as I said publish an edited video do you want to record it for a podcast are you live streaming it um are you writing it up as a blog post or are
(05:39) you using it as background for quotes Etc um and depending on what you want to do with it um you have to pay attention to different things for example if you're live streaming how you structure your questions is going to be important because you want the conversation to flow and to just you know one thing lead to the next in a chill and easy way that doesn't feel many ufactured but if you're if you know you're going to edit this up into a video afterwards then that's less important cuz you can move
(06:07) things around on your timeline but you want to focus on how you ask your questions you want to make sure that they're really clear and concise because if they're not it's going to be hell to edit and I say that because I made that mistake recently because I've been out of the editing game for a while so definitely definitely make sure you ask clear questions and not just half sentences tacked onto what your partner just said um and also like what vibe are you going for do you want this to be like a chill
(06:34) conversation between two uh between two industry experts or do you want your interview partner to be like the person giving expert advice to your audience that will also inform what you do your next step is research um I always recommend researching the topic even if you think you know enough about it already do your research and also researching the person and what they've previously said about the topic um like I said at the beginning we can't all be experts on everything and content people are notoriously Jacks of
(07:06) all trades and research is kind of what gives us an edge isn't it um because research helps us know just enough about a topic to be dangerous you know just enough to ask those really good questions that gets you those really juicy quotes and um while you do your research you also will finally like get a you will understand where the conversation could go all the directions it could take and that will help you guide it where you needed to go um so yeah and then once you know all that you can come up with your with your
(07:44) questions um just write them all down and including potential follow-up questions and put them in a logical order I usually just like write them down and then move move stuff around until it makes sense and by makes sense I mean you want to have a thread that guides the conversation that seems natural natural rather than having a disjointed kind of Q&A where you just ask a question they reply and then you're like okay next question um cuz that's awkward um sometimes it'd be like that but that's
(08:17) not what we're aiming for so um oh yeah if you have lots of questions you can totally group and subgroup them that's that's totally cool and you create a kind of a questions catalog and then I recommend having a call with your interview partner um because you need to tell them what you're planning to talk about and also give them a chance to say what they would like included and then add that to your questions I also think it's always a good idea to ask if anything is off limits especially when you're doing a
(08:46) live interview a live stream you want to make sure that you don't Venture into any errors you shouldn't Venture into uh and personally also think it's a good idea to ask them how to introduce them has their job title changed um how do you pronounce their name many names are tricky mine included um and also ask for people's pronouns that's something I always advocate for obviously uh all in all this kind of it's like a 50-minute call um that's really helpful to put people at ease with each other especially if you
(09:14) haven't met someone in person yet so how complex your questions catalog is depends on the topic I've got a bit of an example here I've been doing some live streams earlier this year about core skills topics actually um and we've talked about things like public speaking and live streaming and networking and those questions are relatively simple I usually have a few questions about the person and a few questions about the topic and we just have a conversation take questions from the audience it's easy it's chill but
(09:46) earlier this year I also did an interview with an AI founder and that um was a much much more complex catalog of questions that you can I mean this is just like a simplification of it but I had to ask question questions about the product about um AI ethics about AI frugality um we even ventured into AI politics so uh that took a lot longer to prepare for but it was definitely worth it because I was a lot more prepared to go with the flow and with what he had to say in that moment of course how you prep is ultimately up to you but I have one big
(10:22) piece of advice for you and that's don't try to look smart honestly like We All Fall for this but an interview is not a place for you to show off how much you know about something an interview is a place for you to make it easy for the person you're interviewing to share their experience to share their knowledge with your audience um in fact I've often had really good luck with being like coming across as slightly clueless so be like oh like could you explain to me why your AI like uses less resources than others
(10:54) have I researched this before of course have I mostly understood it of course but if I ask the question this way I get a more complete answer and if I get a more complete answer that then the content that I put out is going to be way more accessible to a broader range of people not just the people who already know a lot about the topic but even people who are just starting out with it um yeah so that's your prep work now you've got your prep work done and I'm telling you to forget don't forget your prep
(11:23) work obviously but um I want you in the interview itself to use your prep word as your crutch to as your confidence to to be in the moment and to go with the flow and there are a couple of things that you can do in an interview that'll make this easier for you as well sorry um side note I didn't always love interviews I love them now but I actually hated them when I was a young journalist also I look young but when I I'm not that young and when I was a young journalist recording devices were not as ubiquitous as they are now and I
(11:59) know this horribly dates me but that's just the truth of it we had like three in The Newsroom and you had to book them in advance and you know and then you took them away and then you had to bring them back again it was just not a nightmare and a lot of the so a lot of the time you didn't have recording devices you had to take notes interviews were often spontaneous the worst thing was interviews on the phone because my audio processing is arguably pretty bad um and The Newsroom was loud so interviews were a source of stress for
(12:26) me I was like focusing on trying not to anything and I couldn't focus on a conversation I couldn't actually focus on asking good questions so I know it seems like a no-brainer but if you know this background you know why I'm saying please record your interviews even if you think you don't need the recording it's it's going to free you up in the moment um you don't have to focus on notes the only notes you should take are if your interview partner says something you're like oh there's another question
(12:54) I need to add you jot that down you're good speaking of questions take them off as as you go and then you have an easy way to see what's left and what you've already asked um if a conversation stalling Don't Panic that happens just take a breath just like with a stage right take a breath say let me just quickly check my notes and then you go um yeah no I do have another question or maybe you don't um but it's totally okay to just even on a live stream you're like let me just quickly check my
(13:28) notes breathe probably the other person's happy to get a sip of water um I also have a secret tip for ending interviews this is something that's worked really well for me it is it it is a total no-brainer I know but I always like to ask is there anything I haven't asked you yet or anything that you would ask yourself if you were interviewing you um that gives them the opportunity to share their message again and if they if they're like nah I think we've covered everything then that gives you a
(13:58) good SE seg way to end the interview but all in all I really want you I really want you to enjoy yourself uh an interview at the end of the day is just a conversation between two people which leads me to the next part which is how do you make it a good conversation so people often tell me that I'm easy to talk to in interviews I mean I guess otherwise as well but in interviews specifically and then I make it possible for them to present their best selves in the situation um it's a nice compliment but I think it's neither
(14:37) sorcery nor superpower um I think I just I meet people in a way that makes them feel comfortable and um then they're more likely to share their experiences with me or information or whatever and this is where finally I bet if all been waiting for it finally Drew Barrymore comes into this um unlikely but D AR and I have some things in common two things actually um The Uncanny ability to pose awkwardly for photos um but more importantly I think um it's how we interact with people during interviews where I've seen some
(15:16) similarities and I think that's what makes it work for both of us I don't know who here has ever seen the Drew bar Mor I think the ones in the US are more likely to have seen it here you can yeah if you've never seen it please please I I beg you look up some clips on YouTube it is so worth it it is amazing the way she interacts with people is so special she as you can see she leans in like she gets up close and personal she kind of puts all her self-consciousness aside um and you can tell that that she's really genuinely
(15:49) interested in people and she gets so many good things out of those interviews it's it's really amazing how well it works now of course a talk show or interviewing celebrities is is different from what I do sadly if you if you want to hire me for that um Drew call me um um I have interviewed people of about all kinds of topics including personal ones such as mental health but most of my stuff is obviously Tech topics and I assume so is yours um but that doesn't mean that we can't use the same techniques through bar more users um and
(16:27) by techniques I actually mean personality traits which are curiosity and empathy so let's look at curiosity first um the same goes that curiosity killed the cat I think I think that's um I think maybe being nosy killed the cat CU curiosity is defined in the Oxford dictionary as a strong desire to know about something whereas NOS is defined as wanting to know too much I think that's the key um and yeah Drew barimore clearly has a strong desire to know about the people she interview VI and so do I we're genuinely
(17:02) interested in in who you are what you're passionate about why you do what you do what moves you and what motivates you and this desire to know and understand makes it easy for us to talk to people I think um they can tell I'm interested and simply put it flatters them I don't know how many of you know this but I'm actually originally from Austria and I have taken a surprising liking to Austria's favorite expert Arnold chenega in recent years uh I actually subscribed to his newsletter uh which ref you're to Fitness is really
(17:38) cool and in a recent one he said uh people can tell when you're interested in them and they love that no matter who they are and what they do I think Arie is absolutely right with that but what he implies and what I will tell you straight out is that that interest has to be genuine you can't fake it you they know they can tell if it's fake so so don't fake it I know it's easier said than none but hear me out okay yes not everyone is interesting I will grant you that but I would wager that you can find something interesting
(18:12) about everyone you just have to put in the work um I think as children we innately have this kind of curiosity and then it gets educated out of us with some of us the education didn't take um but this is also why I think that you can read discover this kind of curiosity if you've lost it um it yeah like I said it just takes a bit of practice so I'm going to give you home homework now I I want you to practice being interested in people for example when you meet someone let yourself be curious when today tomorrow talk to
(18:46) people put your own like what do you want to gain out of this conversation put that aside and just listen and be curious and ask questions and let yourself connect um and see how that feels which leads me to the second trait that I think jur and I have in common which is empathy I know it's such a buzz word these days but uh the Oxford dictionary uh defines empathy as the ability to understand another person's feelings experience Etc essentially it's putting yourself in somebody else's shoes at the same time there's this
(19:18) tenant in journalism that they taught me in school that you must always remain objective meaning you must keep a distance but objectivity doesn't exist like unless you're doing like Watergate level reporting it's nothing that you need to strive for in your interviews um instead let yourself engage with people I'm not saying crawl into their Labs like Dre arore does that seems maybe maybe don't do that unless you have consent um but like Let Yourself empathize let yourself make a connection
(19:51) you know show that you understand show that you relate by sharing one of your experiences that is similar to what they shared with you essentially make them feel H because people who feel hurt are willing to talk ultimately um I think engagement is where it's at if engagement happens when you bring both curiosity and empathy to the table it makes people want to tell you things and that's how you get great content no so as one of my favorite Star Trek captains says engage Picard has let me down canvas doing weird thing sorry about that but
(20:42) yeah it's basically Picard going engage um do that don't hide behind an interview's facade or anything you know an interview is meant to be a conversation and not an inquisition and you can get that you can't get that without engaging I'm I'm bitter I'm bitter about this salty um at least this one's there so let's Rec how you're going to get good at interviewing preparation is your friend do your research prep your questions take off your questions as you go so you know what you've asked and what you
(21:17) haven't record your interview even if you don't think you need to engage and allow yourself to be interested um and remember that interviewing is a skill and like most skills it takes practice to get better I I've done a lot of shitty interviews but each one of them has helped me get better and last but not least please remember to enjoy yourself I've got another drop ARA quote for you she recently said I get to learn from people every day I get to have these incredible conversations that definit that I
(21:46) definitely take something away from It's Always improving my life it's profound it's fun honestly I have nothing to add to that so if you want to get better at interviews Channel you in Drear more integrate the advice that I've that I've shared with you today and watch yourself improve with practice um sorry and if you after all this you still don't enjoy interviews please by all means Outsource that to someone who does um if you think that someone's me I'm actually currently open to talking
(22:19) about interesting interesting jobs at cool places um but yeah thank you so much for coming today um I hope you have a great time at wel come I hope you meet interesting people and talk to them and feel free to like drop me a message on social media and let me know how that goes for [Applause] you do we have time for questions there was not one moment of hesitation with this question I'm in I say we have some time for question you ask no worries you do that uh firstly thank you so much I love that talk and I
(22:54) now have an overwhelming urge to watch the bar show Cana sorry I didn't swear during the talk that's that's the official message of De alconic soon um so we have uh we have about 10 minutes for questions so yeah there was a five minute warning I was like do you have any tips for developing empathy and practicing empathy for those of us who um don't necessarily have it built in and have to sort of work on that explicitly what do you mean by don't have it built in like the only people that actually don't have a build
(23:24) in our social paths as far as I okay so those of us for whom we for whom uh it doesn't come easily and we have to sort of work to understand other people's experiences sort of this is something I've done right uh really kind of rigorously go okay what might this person be feeling how might these person's experiences have informed where they're coming from um it's a neurod diverent question sorry it's a neurod this is this is a neurod Divergent question yes so if it's relating to
(23:51) autism then I would say that you have that empathy mhm do you have tips for accessing it more easily in situations where you feel like you might be lacking it so you have like you have a situation you're like I'm not empathizing but I feel like I should ask more questions okay just be like ask for details if that's appropriate obviously um yeah I think I think asking more questions until I understand is what I do and that also applies to emotional understanding which I think empathy is in a way so like leaning on the
(24:20) Curiosity yeah and just dig for that like obviously don't be intrusive but like yeah okay thank you you're welcome okay any advice for when you're interviewing someone who's giving you monosyllabic answers and not expanding on anything um why are you interviewing them to begin with um did you research the person first no um those people are difficult um you have to ask a lot of like follow-up questions and like dig and sometimes it's as brutal as was saying hey could you expand on that please
(24:59) could you could you tell me more about that um but ultimately um the question is why are they being monosyllabic do you have nothing to say about the topic then you shouldn't be interviewing them to begin with um are they are they are they having stage fright um then maybe you can make them more comfortable in advance like sometimes I have this like quick call with people to just say hey these are the questions whatever but sometimes it's bit more just making them at ease I had a part in the talk that I took out that was about
(25:27) making people at ease making sure they have all the information beforehand like I'm autistic I as much information as I can get beforeand I appreciate so if you're going to tell me what a situation is like I'm going to be more relaxed in the moment so um if you suspect in the sort of kind of pre-t talk that preall that someone's going to be difficult to get information out of then figure out what you can do to make them word ease and also even be like hey um I noticed you give very short answers how can I
(25:55) make you how can I get longer answers from you I saw a few I interview people that get carried away a lot and go off the Beaten Track how do I better create questions that keep them short sharp and easily editable I mean you can if you know this in advance you can focus the questions more and just ask small smaller questions if you know what I mean um and also so you mean you're you're doing it for knowing that you'll have to edit is basically the yeah yeah that's difficult um I do a lot of like audio
(26:38) editing I go by the by the by the wave and then I'm like try to cut people off uh but that's that's obviously not ideal but that's what I do um yeah you can try interrupting taking a deep breath and being like and sometimes that works and stuff um yeah short like smaller bites of questions is the best best thing you can do in that situation yeah or maybe just like meld them a bit although I'd argue that's a better problem to have than that one like i' prefer that one to that one I'm adding on to the empathy
(27:20) question how can you give some examples of the ways that someone has made you feel like oh I I feel really heard and seen like what are your favorite ways in addition to being asked questions of feeling like wow this person is really empathizing with me cuz I've often been told like you think oh I'm empathizing with someone but the other person's like actually I don't feel that from you I mean I try not to do resting face um always I can't change my face yeah no what I like what I consciously will do
(27:48) is I will I will do that whole like reacting just like if you record your sound separately it's fine um if you're recording one sound for both try to keep your reactions muted obviously but I do a lot of like nodding and understanding and like the physical signs that we as humans have agreed are signs of understanding it's like oh yes M yeah I understand okay that's your question okay you know things like that it sounds so silly and you like kind of overdo it a little bit then it goes via video con
(28:23) like if you're video conferencing or whatever it comes across as well um but yeah and sometimes it's that simple saying oh I understand or like oh something similar has happened to me and then I know you're not supposed to bring yourself in but like as I said I'm autistic my way of relating is to say oh that has happened to me as well and brief anecdote and then move on so yeah stuff like that there was someone else I think but maybe not thank you uh love your Workshop thank you so much for this I wanted to
(28:59) ask you how much of your questions do you share with your uh interviewee in advance so that they don't prepare um sort of like fully composed answers to it so I usually give them like a rough overview of topics I want to talk about like with the AI example I would be like I want to talk about why it's Frugal um the ethics of it how your product works stuff like that that they're usually prepared for um um if it's like a personal topic such as mental health which I've done with tabaza um my
(29:35) my nonprofit I I would probably be more kind of thinking about content warnings and be like this is these are topics I want to talk about is that okay with you some people genuinely want you to share the answers so can they can think about it first which I I'm the like in job interviews if I know what's coming in a technical interview I'm going to be more relaxed um I don't have a problem doing that as long I'm just telling people like please don't prepare and read off of it and they mostly know not to do
(30:02) that so I don't think it's a problem to share it with someone who asks for it if they don't ask for it just keep it Loose with the topics okay and follow-up question um how much of your own opinion do you share during interviews I mean depends on if I'm doing it for my own live stream a lot um if I'm doing it for work for an employee who doesn't want me to share a lot of my own opinion then less so if I can edit it out I might be like oh yeah no I agree with you on the AI ethics issues but I'm going to edit
(30:30) it out um I do think interviews are better if I bring my whole self to the to the thing rather than just otherwise you have the Inquisition thing like question answer question answer and yeah awesome thanks it's okay to be you basically one more your hand went up first over here bring you the mic you got to can ask me afterwards this is a very short question you may have just answered but if I wanted to is your live stream the right place if I want to see your Technique unedited in action to oh yeah you yeah yeah um like
(31:05) um I think it's linked somewhere on um but it's um I'm the grumpy NB everywhere including on Twitch um there's not a lot up because um I got busy with job search stuff and so on but yeah okay thank you that's one we have one more hey um thanks for this this was great K when it comes to prepping that has has been somewhat of a black box for me do you do you find yourself yeah um is it more of a grind and it's just like hey social media profiles you're going on LinkedIn finding out these folks and
(31:37) Googling them or whatever is there any kind of other tips or things that you found useful when when prepping do you mean about the person specifically when yes about the person you're interviewing yeah no that's that's pretty much it as well as obviously like Googling if if they've done previous interviews about this topic or I've written a blog post about it then I'll look at that um stuff like that I mean simply put you can also ask them hey what is the stuff that we should focus on for this like CU you
(32:02) know your stuff best and you're the expert on this what should we focus on and a huge round of applause for [Music] Kai
