Three ways to give a good interview, and one way to shake things up
I do a lot of interviews. At least two or three a week — ranging from CNN to local newspapers. And no matter where the interview is running, there are three things you need to know about doing a good one:
1. Be interesting. The questions people ask you are not really what they want to know. It’s what they think will be interesting. They would ask you about the price of tea in China if they thought the answer would be interesting. So your job in an interview is to give an answer that is entertaining and thought-provoking and all the other things that people like.
2. Be short. The world does not have an unlimited attention span to hear how your mind works. So you can’t think out loud（大声说出某人的想法，想说就说） in an interview and have everyone wait til you get to your point. Your point has to start right away.
Also, if you are short then you are more likely to be interesting the whole time. The longer you talk about a given topic the harder it is to keep someone’s interest. In the PR world this is called “soundbite”（指简短而精悍的话语）. But really, you can use the sound bite technique everywhere – on radio, in a blog post, on a date.
3. Be conversational. You can’t be chatty（adj.善谈的，喜欢说的）in a written interview because there’s no one there. But on the phone, or on TV you can actually make the interview into more of a conversation. In a many cases, the interview becomes more interesting this way.
First of all, it tells the audience that the person interviewing is interesting in their own right, because you are asking questions back to him or her. And a room with two interesting people is better than a room with only one interesting person. The second thing is that the conversation becomes a little less scripted（adj.照原稿朗读）and there is more risk and more space for unbridled(adj.肆意的,放肆的）passion, on either side of the conversation. And spontaneity makes conversation more engaging(adj.吸引人的）. Be upbeat is also a rule. I think. But why is this a rule? I think it is like the rule about the first two minutes – or whatever the time frame is that someone forms their judgment of you.
