The goal of this article is to help you prepare for the interview. Interviews are context-specific, so we can’t give you questions to ask. You could be interviewing someone for a host of reasons related to content, video production, and so forth.

What we can do, though, is provide guidance on how to prepare interview questions and how to vet and revise those questions. We’ll even share some tips on improvising during the conversation, if needed.

Why good questions enhance interviews

Interviews come in many formats, including talk shows, reporting, expert podcasts, and documentaries. But, they all share one goal: uncover answers you can’t find anywhere else. That’s why learning how to write interview questions matters.

If information were public knowledge, there’d be no need for an interview at all. Good questions enhance interviews by shaping the conversation toward clarity, depth, and engagement, turning surface-level responses into real insight.

So, what makes a good interview? Purposeful questions guide interviewees toward revealing and honest answers. Effective interview questions tend to be:

• Open-ended and insight-focused.
• Grounded in real scenarios or experiences.
• Structured enough to dive deep without feeling rigid.

Knowing how to prepare interview questions, whether open-ended, scenario-based, or research-driven, helps uncover new angles and get more authentic responses.

This is the difference between getting the scoop and producing something that sounds like a regurgitated Wikipedia page.

Types of interview questions to use

Knowing how to write interview questions starts with choosing the right type. Different question types shape how an interview unfolds and determine whether you get surface-level answers or meaningful insight.

Most fall into a few key categories that work best when paired thoughtfully: open-ended questions, scenario and follow-up questions, and probing versus neutral questions.

Understanding how to prepare interview questions using these types makes it easier to guide conversations, stay focused, and get answers you can’t find anywhere else.

Open-Ended Questions (best for deep insights)

Open-ended questions give interviewees freedom to answer in their own words.

Unlike leading questions, which are designed to encourage a desired answer, open-ended questions invite explanation, reflection, and detail. This makes them essential when learning how to ask good interview questions for informative or compelling interviews.

Examples include:

• "What is a story that defines who you are today?"
• “How did that experience affect you?”
• “When did you last feel overwhelming joy in your life?”

Open-ended questions work best when you want thoughtful, nuanced responses rather than confirmation of facts. They encourage interviewees to share context, emotion, and perspective, often revealing insights you didn’t anticipate.

Scenario & Follow-Up Questions

Scenario questions present a situation and ask how the interviewee would respond, while follow-up questions dig deeper into their reasoning. These are common in job interviews but equally useful elsewhere.

Examples include:

• “Has there ever been a time you had to take control of a situation? What approach did you use?”
• “How would you handle an unhappy client? What would you do next if that plan failed?”
• "Tell me about a time you made a mistake that no one else noticed. What did you do? What was going through your mind at that moment?"

Scenario questions help focus the conversation, and follow-ups prevent vague or overly polished answers. Used intentionally, they’re a practical way to apply how to ask good interview questions without losing control of the discussion.

Probing vs. Neutral Questions

Neutral questions are low-stakes and nonconfrontational. They help introduce topics, establish context, or ease transitions. Some example questions might include:

• “What do you like best about your job?”
• “What’s your favorite color?”

The benefit of neutral questions is that they’re approachable and good for setting up the interview. However, responses tend to be limited in depth.

Probing questions push for specifics or challenge earlier statements:

• “What would you say to critics who disagree?”
• “Can you explain what you mean by that?”

Probing questions are great for getting deeper, more revealing answers, but they risk picking at sensitive or complex topics.

Balancing both is key when deciding how to prepare interview questions for real insight.

How to prepare interview questions (before you write them)

Strong interviews start before you ever sit down to write interview questions. Preparation is what aligns your expectations with the results you actually get. Use this checklist to prepare effectively and set yourself up to ask good interview questions.

• Do your research. Read, watch, and listen to previous interviews so you’re not hearing basic information for the first time. Familiarize yourself with your interviewee’s work to uncover something new.
• Define your goals. Ask yourself what you still want to know and what hasn’t been fully answered. Naming your objective keeps your questions focused.
• Understand the exchange. Interviews are a transaction—your guest has goals too, whether that’s promotion or exposure.
• Identify key topics. Decide what areas you want to cover so the conversation stays intentional.
• Plan the sequence. Outline the order of topics and transitions to help the discussion flow naturally.
• Choose question types. Decide where open-ended, probing, or follow-up questions will be most effective.
• Stay flexible. Preparation matters, but interviews aren’t scripts. Leave room for the conversation to go somewhere unexpected.

Once you’ve finished preparing, you can start writing your interview questions.

How to ask your questions during the interview

Once you’ve learned how to prepare interview questions, the real work happens during the conversation itself. How you ask questions — your tone, timing, and flexibility — directly affects the quality of the answers you get.

Use these tips to ask better questions in the moment:

• Help your guest feel comfortable. Set a relaxed, professional tone, so interviewees feel safe opening up.
• Start with context-setting questions. Use your first question to introduce the guest and establish flow.
• Show genuine curiosity. Ask questions you actually want answered, and signal interest through attention and body language.
• Ask simple clarifying questions. If things get too technical, a quick “what does that mean?” keeps everyone aligned.
• Use follow-ups to go deeper. Short prompts like “how?” or “tell me more” help you improvise without losing focus.
• Stay flexible, not scripted. Let the conversation wander when it gets interesting; then, guide it back if needed.
• Embrace silence. Pauses give interviewees space to think and often lead to better answers.

Mastering these habits is a key part of how to ask good interview questions in real interviews.

Common mistakes to avoid

There are plenty of pitfalls and obstacles to a successful interview. But, some are more common (and more urgent) than others.

Letting bias shape your questions

Avoid asking leading questions or framing questions that push a preferred answer. These tend to skew responses, making them feel forced or inauthentic.

Instead, use neutral, open-ended wording, so interviewees can respond freely.

Asking double-barreled questions

Avoid combining multiple questions into one. These can often confuse interviewees or reduce the quality and depth of responses.

Instead, ask one clear question at a time to avoid confusion and shallow answers. You can always ask follow-up questions if you need or want more information.

Making assumptions about your guest

Don’t presume knowledge, intent, or experience. Making assumptions can often lead to unintentional bias and tends to make interviews less objective.

Do your research. Then, ask clarifying questions instead of filling gaps yourself.

Asking ‘just Google it’ questions

Don’t waste time on basic facts. This can make the interviewee feel undervalued, leading to lower engagement on their part. It also affects the quality of the interview, limiting depth of responses and hindering two-way conversation.

Part of preparing for an interview involves researching in advance. You want to ask questions to uncover new insights rather than questions that can be answered in a quick Google search.

Overusing yes/no questions

Avoid forcing narrow answers. These types of questions can limit conversation, resulting in superficial or surface-level answers.

Instead, favor open-ended or scenario-based questions that encourage stories and depth. Not only does this encourage more authentic responses, but it gives interviewees room to guide the conversation.

Talking too much or fearing silence

Avoid dominating the conversation or filling pauses. Rambling can create a lack of clarity while also presenting you as self-centered.

Keep questions short, give the moment room to breathe, and then let the interviewee fill the silence. This is often when the best answers emerge.

Prevent ‘technical difficulties’

Avoid technical difficulties in advance. Technical problems, like audio lags, echoes, or dropped connections can affect your reputation or lower interviewee engagement.

Test your setup, equipment, software and digital tools, and everything in-between before the start of the interview. This is necessary to ensure editing the audio and video is frustration-free.

How well-crafted interview questions yield deeper insights

We live in a golden age of shared information, which makes access to a primary source more valuable than ever. Well-crafted interview questions help you reach meaningful insights faster by creating space for trust, depth, and genuine exchange.

When questions are thoughtful and intentional, interviews feel less like information retrieval and more like real conversations.

Approaches like scenario-based and follow-up questions encourage interviewees to recall specific moments or imagine real situations. In their answers, interviewees often reveal problem-solving skills and unexpected perspectives.

This balance of structure without rigidity helps interviews stay focused while still feeling fluid. More importantly, asking strong questions signals respect. It shows that you value your guest’s experience and appreciate the knowledge they’re sharing.

To put this into practice: review your goals, revise your questions for clarity and openness, and run a quick mock interview to test flow and follow-ups.

When you’re ready to record, tools like Descript can help you capture conversations cleanly and organize notes afterward, so the insights you worked to uncover don’t get lost.

FAQs

What is the first question you should ask?

In a lot of interviews, it’s common to invite the guest to introduce themselves, their topic, or some other foundational details important to the unfolding discussion. This may not be necessary if the audience you’re sharing the interview with is already well-read on those topics.

But odds are, there is something that will need to be explained or at least reviewed before the questions begin in earnest. So, make sure everyone’s on the same page with some opener questions, and go from there.

How many interview questions should you prepare?

This will depend heavily on the kind of questions, the topics you’re covering, and how long the interview is. Frankly, odds are good that you’ll be surprisingly inaccurate in your estimation of how many questions you will actually need, though it could be too many just as easily as it could be too few.

Your best bet is to prepare more than you think you need. Then, prioritize the ones you feel are the most critical, and keep the others as sidebars you can throw in as necessary. 

How do you avoid leading questions?

A leading question is any question that fishes for a desired answer.

So, for example, instead of asking "Didn't that terrible marketing decision ruin the campaign?" ask "How did that specific marketing decision affect the overall campaign?"

Leave the question open-ended, and let them answer in a way that feels the most appropriate to them.

What are the best open-ended questions to ask in an interview?

Open-ended questions that begin with “why,” “how,” or “what” can spark detailed answers and encourage interviewees to share personal anecdotes.

According to Indeed’s guidelines on writing interview questions, these prompts help you avoid one-word answers and dig deeper into motivations and experiences. By using prompts like “Tell me about a time you overcame a challenge,” you invite meaningful stories that can reveal creativity and resilience.

Always tailor your open-ended questions to the context of your interview, focusing on the interviewee’s unique background. This approach ensures more genuine and revealing responses that help listeners connect with your guest.

Should I ask scenario-based questions?

Scenario-based questions allow you to see how an interviewee might handle practical challenges and real-life tasks. As noted by problem-solving interview best practices, these queries can highlight a person’s decision-making process and adaptability.

But, that’s not necessarily the goal of every interview. This works well when interviewing a job applicant but not as well when asking a subject matter expert about their insight into a given crisis. So, keep the context and the interview’s purpose in mind.

How can I maintain a personal connection in remote or virtual interviews?

Staying engaged in a remote setting can be challenging, but virtual interactions don’t have to be sterile and inhuman. You’ll lose some of the natural nonverbal communication you might have been expecting, so lean on alternatives.

Express interest and engagement with the interviewee using words — ask follow-up questions, or briefly express your feelings about their responses. And, do what you can to send those nonverbal signals, like making eye contact, nodding, or using small hand gestures.