1.1: Why Study Interviewing?

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We are participating in interviews every day. That may sound surprising but at its essence, interviewing is simply the process of seeking or providing information. Interviewing is one of the most important and practical skills students can learn and develop. Interviewing will be your bread and butter as a communicator. It is the means by which you will elicit information from people, get new perspectives, and achieve new understandings. Tapping into people – primary sources – through interviewing is a skill honed over time.

Interviewing is a technique that is incorporated at more than one point in the information seeking process. Advertising researchers might use focus-group interviews to learn about issues they intend to examine more extensively through survey interviews later in the research process. News reporters do a preliminary set of interviews, along with background research in the news archive, in order to get themselves up to speed on the issues of the story they are covering. Public relations practitioners often interview sources such as company officials when writing news releases. Job seekers participate in interviews to discover whether the organization they are interested in is a good fit. Human resources representatives and hiring managers evaluate employees’ job performance and interview potential candidates in order to fill open positions.