Interviewing Quick Guide: The Art and Craft (Writer Block)

In this series, I intend to share my knowledge and experiences. This first book, Interviewing Quick Guide: The Art and Craft, is intended to help writers and other interviewers and their subjects have the best interviewing experience as possible. I hope you en-joy the book and the process.

You might wonder why I would write a book like this. It dawned on me some time ago that there is an art to conducting an interview.

I have been a writer for over 40 years and have my own marketing company, Convey Media Group. We help clients, especially independent authors and innovators, with social media and video as well as branding and other traditional marketing. In retrospect, I realize I have been interviewing folks for most of those years whether gathering software requirements as a technical writing in a major corporation or while working as a video producer for promotional videos.

I ran the video committee for the Digital Marketing For Business conference and our group did video interviews with most of the speakers. As I worked with my committee members, some were more comfortable handling these interviews than others. Some interviewers felt more in their element because they had an understanding of the technology. Others seemed to draw comfort from their ability to prepare ques-tions that would set the interviewee at ease.

I realized that there were a few tips and techniques that helped many of the interviewers.

This book is my attempt to share some of that knowledge with you so you can up your game the next time you do an in-terview. Although we did not find any hard and fast rules, the experience did provide some important clues to increase the interviewer's comfort and run smoother sessions.

Author Drew Becker's book, Interviewing Quick Guide: The Art and the Craft is a wonderful book. What separates this book from many of the other books on the same subject is its down to earth and easy to read writing style. Drew is a pragmatist which is easy to see from the start to the end of the book. He guides the reader on the best way to conduct an interview and to get the information you need from someone to get the real facts. There is a talent to writing a book like this in that as a reader you never like to get the feeling an author is rigidly pushing their own techniques. I really got the impression in reading this book that the author was saying trust your own instincts. The book can serve as a guide to assist you in becoming a more thorough interviewer. It is loaded with tips based on the research and practical experience that Drew Becker has gained over the many years of his very successful business career. By Bernie Ashman, author of SignMates, Intuition and Your Sun Sign, and Sun Signs and Past Lives

As a lead teacher heading a team of seven people, I am often called upon to interview candidates who seek positions at our school. Athough my interviews are private and not recorded or publicized, I found the information in this book to be very helpful in outlining the communication skills necessary to carry out a successful job interview. This consists of introducing the candidates to the unique programs we have in our school, but more importantly to ask open-ended questions that elicit the interviewee's response about his or her qualifications, interests, strong and weak points, and compatibility with our environment. Bravo to Mr. Becker for reminding me in this book of some of the most effective techniques of the interviewing process! By Dinah Chetrit

What an outstanding, comprehensive guide! The author did not forget a thing! This helped me to know how to prepare - the types of questions to ask - what I will need for the interview - how to treat the "guest" - what to do after the interview - and all the things needed in order to have and make use of a successful interview! By Doris Henderson

Concise and to the point! Very helpful for small business owners. By Nancy Z.