“Listen and Respond” – How to Improve Your Interviews

During my time working with Combat Sports UK/Overtime Heroics, I’ve been able to speak with some of the countries best fighters. I’ve interviewed a number of fighters for the website and it’s fair to say I have developed a range of different skills as a result.

Interviewing is something I enjoy. It is something I want to be doing throughout my career. Therefore, I need to ensure that I am always on top of my game whenever I am interviewing somebody.

There are several different skills that you need, however, for me, my editors and colleagues believe that the skills I have had to develop most over the last few months have specifically been: my researching and my cognitive response skills.

Firstly, my research. Of course I research when I do my interviews, you must if you are to prepare good questions and be ready for whatever may come up. But, I’ve been told there are levels to this. You can do a quick google search and find all the basics that you need, or you can take that one step further.

This can be mean, checking out the interviewees social media pages, delving deeper into their google searches and finding out more about them from things they used to do in the past. I’m always surprised how much more you can find out about a person when you get all-out with the research that you do.

For example, if I am speaking with a fighter who has a bout coming up in the next few weeks, I’ll go back and look at who they’ve already fought and how those fights went.

If I see that a fighter has beaten someone who has since gone on to be a world champion, then I know just how good my interviewee must be. You can find out about the fighter but finding out about the fighters that they have already fought is now a necessity.

Because my knowledge of the sport and its combatants has grown so much over the past couple of years, I understand the sort of things I must look for when I am researching a fighter or a promoter.

The other skill was my cognitive response skills. Listening to what my interviewee is saying and responding to it. If I hear them say something that I did not expect, nor plan for then responding to that in the correct manner is really important.

You could a story just from their response that you least expected. But, it’s how you look at that and fully appreciate it in a way that you can get a thorough follow up.

Since this feedback I have taken it all onboard and am now a more confidence and arguably more skilled interviewer.