how to write interview questions in research

Qualitative Research 101: Interviewing

5 Common Mistakes To Avoid When Undertaking Interviews

By: David Phair (PhD) and Kerryn Warren (PhD) | March 2022

Undertaking interviews is potentially the most important step in the qualitative research process. If you don’t collect useful, useable data in your interviews, you’ll struggle through the rest of your dissertation or thesis.  Having helped numerous students with their research over the years, we’ve noticed some common interviewing mistakes that first-time researchers make. In this post, we’ll discuss five costly interview-related mistakes and outline useful strategies to avoid making these.

Overview: 5 Interviewing Mistakes

• Not having a clear interview strategy /plan
• Not having good interview techniques /skills
• Not securing a suitable location and equipment
• Not having a basic risk management plan
• Not keeping your “ golden thread ” front of mind

1. Not having a clear interview strategy

The first common mistake that we’ll look at is that of starting the interviewing process without having first come up with a clear interview strategy or plan of action. While it’s natural to be keen to get started engaging with your interviewees, a lack of planning can result in a mess of data and inconsistency between interviews.

There are several design choices to decide on and plan for before you start interviewing anyone. Some of the most important questions you need to ask yourself before conducting interviews include:

• What are the guiding research aims and research questions of my study?
• Will I use a structured, semi-structured or unstructured interview approach?
• How will I record the interviews (audio or video)?
• Who will be interviewed and by whom ?
• What ethics and data law considerations do I need to adhere to?
• How will I analyze my data? 

Let’s take a quick look at some of these.

The core objective of the interviewing process is to generate useful data that will help you address your overall research aims. Therefore, your interviews need to be conducted in a way that directly links to your research aims, objectives and research questions (i.e. your “golden thread”). This means that you need to carefully consider the questions you’ll ask to ensure that they align with and feed into your golden thread. If any question doesn’t align with this, you may want to consider scrapping it.

Another important design choice is whether you’ll use an unstructured, semi-structured or structured interview approach . For semi-structured interviews, you will have a list of questions that you plan to ask and these questions will be open-ended in nature. You’ll also allow the discussion to digress from the core question set if something interesting comes up. This means that the type of information generated might differ a fair amount between interviews.

Contrasted to this, a structured approach to interviews is more rigid, where a specific set of closed questions is developed and asked for each interviewee in exactly the same order. Closed questions have a limited set of answers, that are often single-word answers. Therefore, you need to think about what you’re trying to achieve with your research project (i.e. your research aims) and decided on which approach would be best suited in your case.

It is also important to plan ahead with regards to who will be interviewed and how. You need to think about how you will approach the possible interviewees to get their cooperation, who will conduct the interviews, when to conduct the interviews and how to record the interviews. For each of these decisions, it’s also essential to make sure that all ethical considerations and data protection laws are taken into account.

Finally, you should think through how you plan to analyze the data (i.e., your qualitative analysis method) generated by the interviews. Different types of analysis rely on different types of data, so you need to ensure you’re asking the right types of questions and correctly guiding your respondents.

Simply put, you need to have a plan of action regarding the specifics of your interview approach before you start collecting data. If not, you’ll end up drifting in your approach from interview to interview, which will result in inconsistent, unusable data.

2. Not having good interview technique

While you’re generally not expected to become you to be an expert interviewer for a dissertation or thesis, it is important to practice good interview technique and develop basic interviewing skills .

Let’s go through some basics that will help the process along.

Firstly, before the interview , make sure you know your interview questions well and have a clear idea of what you want from the interview. Naturally, the specificity of your questions will depend on whether you’re taking a structured, semi-structured or unstructured approach, but you still need a consistent starting point . Ideally, you should develop an interview guide beforehand (more on this later) that details your core question and links these to the research aims, objectives and research questions.

Before you undertake any interviews, it’s a good idea to do a few mock interviews with friends or family members. This will help you get comfortable with the interviewer role, prepare for potentially unexpected answers and give you a good idea of how long the interview will take to conduct. In the interviewing process, you’re likely to encounter two kinds of challenging interviewees ; the two-word respondent and the respondent who meanders and babbles. Therefore, you should prepare yourself for both and come up with a plan to respond to each in a way that will allow the interview to continue productively.

To begin the formal interview , provide the person you are interviewing with an overview of your research. This will help to calm their nerves (and yours) and contextualize the interaction. Ultimately, you want the interviewee to feel comfortable and be willing to be open and honest with you, so it’s useful to start in a more casual, relaxed fashion and allow them to ask any questions they may have. From there, you can ease them into the rest of the questions.

As the interview progresses , avoid asking leading questions (i.e., questions that assume something about the interviewee or their response). Make sure that you speak clearly and slowly , using plain language and being ready to paraphrase questions if the person you are interviewing misunderstands. Be particularly careful with interviewing English second language speakers to ensure that you’re both on the same page.

Engage with the interviewee by listening to them carefully and acknowledging that you are listening to them by smiling or nodding. Show them that you’re interested in what they’re saying and thank them for their openness as appropriate. This will also encourage your interviewee to respond openly.

Need a helping hand?

3. Not securing a suitable location and quality equipment

Where you conduct your interviews and the equipment you use to record them both play an important role in how the process unfolds. Therefore, you need to think carefully about each of these variables before you start interviewing.

Poor location: A bad location can result in the quality of your interviews being compromised, interrupted, or cancelled. If you are conducting physical interviews, you’ll need a location that is quiet, safe, and welcoming . It’s very important that your location of choice is not prone to interruptions (the workplace office is generally problematic, for example) and has suitable facilities (such as water, a bathroom, and snacks).

If you are conducting online interviews , you need to consider a few other factors. Importantly, you need to make sure that both you and your respondent have access to a good, stable internet connection and electricity. Always check before the time that both of you know how to use the relevant software and it’s accessible (sometimes meeting platforms are blocked by workplace policies or firewalls). It’s also good to have alternatives in place (such as WhatsApp, Zoom, or Teams) to cater for these types of issues.

Poor equipment: Using poor-quality recording equipment or using equipment incorrectly means that you will have trouble transcribing, coding, and analyzing your interviews. This can be a major issue , as some of your interview data may go completely to waste if not recorded well. So, make sure that you use good-quality recording equipment and that you know how to use it correctly.

To avoid issues, you should always conduct test recordings before every interview to ensure that you can use the relevant equipment properly. It’s also a good idea to spot check each recording afterwards, just to make sure it was recorded as planned. If your equipment uses batteries, be sure to always carry a spare set.

4. Not having a basic risk management plan

Many possible issues can arise during the interview process. Not planning for these issues can mean that you are left with compromised data that might not be useful to you. Therefore, it’s important to map out some sort of risk management plan ahead of time, considering the potential risks, how you’ll minimize their probability and how you’ll manage them if they materialize.

Common potential issues related to the actual interview include cancellations (people pulling out), delays (such as getting stuck in traffic), language and accent differences (especially in the case of poor internet connections), issues with internet connections and power supply. Other issues can also occur in the interview itself. For example, the interviewee could drift off-topic, or you might encounter an interviewee who does not say much at all.

You can prepare for these potential issues by considering possible worst-case scenarios and preparing a response for each scenario. For instance, it is important to plan a backup date just in case your interviewee cannot make it to the first meeting you scheduled with them. It’s also a good idea to factor in a 30-minute gap between your interviews for the instances where someone might be late, or an interview runs overtime for other reasons. Make sure that you also plan backup questions that could be used to bring a respondent back on topic if they start rambling, or questions to encourage those who are saying too little.

In general, it’s best practice to plan to conduct more interviews than you think you need (this is called oversampling ). Doing so will allow you some room for error if there are interviews that don’t go as planned, or if some interviewees withdraw. If you need 10 interviews, it is a good idea to plan for 15. Likely, a few will cancel , delay, or not produce useful data.

5. Not keeping your golden thread front of mind

We touched on this a little earlier, but it is a key point that should be central to your entire research process. You don’t want to end up with pages and pages of data after conducting your interviews and realize that it is not useful to your research aims . Your research aims, objectives and research questions – i.e., your golden thread – should influence every design decision and should guide the interview process at all times. 

A useful way to avoid this mistake is by developing an interview guide before you begin interviewing your respondents. An interview guide is a document that contains all of your questions with notes on how each of the interview questions is linked to the research question(s) of your study. You can also include your research aims and objectives here for a more comprehensive linkage. 

You can easily create an interview guide by drawing up a table with one column containing your core interview questions . Then add another column with your research questions , another with expectations that you may have in light of the relevant literature and another with backup or follow-up questions . As mentioned, you can also bring in your research aims and objectives to help you connect them all together. If you’d like, you can download a copy of our free interview guide here .

Recap: Qualitative Interview Mistakes

In this post, we’ve discussed 5 common costly mistakes that are easy to make in the process of planning and conducting qualitative interviews.

To recap, these include:

If you have any questions about these interviewing mistakes, drop a comment below. Alternatively, if you’re interested in getting 1-on-1 help with your thesis or dissertation , check out our dissertation coaching service or book a free initial consultation with one of our friendly Grad Coaches.

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This post was based on one of our popular Research Bootcamps . If you're working on a research project, you'll definitely want to check this out ...

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How to write interview questions that get the best from your guest

What type of content do you primarily create?

No matter the type of interview — for a magazine article, for a podcast, for a documentary film, or for entree onto Ira Glass’s private island — a good interview feels natural, like a great conversation. Interviews are all about making the guest feel relaxed — as a general rule, the more comfortable your interviewee is the more they’ll be willing to reveal. And the goal of any interview is to get the guest to reveal something nobody has heard before.

Easier said than done, right? Not everyone is naturally engaging, especially when you shove a microphone in their face. Asking the right interview questions can often be the difference between a revealing interview and an awkward or stilted one.

8 tips for writing great interview questions

Coming into an interview prepared with the right questions can you get what you need from your guest — but that doesn’t mean you have to stick to the script. Here are our tips for writing interview questions that will let you squeeze the best answers from your interviewee.

1. Do your research

Again, the goal of every interview should be to get the guest to reveal something new. So the most important step of the interview process is researching them. Look into their work, their life; read, listen to, and watch other interviews they’ve done so you can be sure to elicit something different. If the person you’re interviewing recently wrote a book or released a film, familiarize yourself with it so that you can discuss it.  

2. Know what you want to get out of it

After you’ve brushed up on everything they’ve said and that’s been said about your guest, ask yourself, what do I still want to know? What questions have yet to be asked? Or thoroughly answered? As you start writing your interview questions, make getting those answers your goal, and keep it front-and-center. Taking time to name your objective will help you write questions that achieve it. Keep the interviewee’s objectives in mind, too. Are they there to promote new work? Remember, it’s a transaction — you’re giving them something (exposure, promotional time, etc.) in exchange for them sharing something your audience cares about.

The goal of every interview is to get the guest to reveal or share something nobody has ever heard. That’s the kind of thing that will get your podcast noticed, whether the guest is a big celebrity in their world or a relative unknown. — Brandon Copple, producer & host, Creativish

3. Start with a question that introduces your guest

Your first question or two will set the tone for the whole interview, so try to ask something that elicits some background information to give context to the interviewee and the interview itself. Rather than asking your interviewee to give their job description, get creative. Ask an astronomer how they would explain their work to an extraterrestrial lifeform or a ballet dancer how they’d describe their life to a 9-year-old ballerina. A good fallback is to give their job title, then ask them to describe a typical workday.

4. Ask questions you want to know the answers to

Set the tone and show your by indulging your curiosity and ask questions that go beyond what others have asked. After soaking up everything about them, what do you still want to know? What about this person inspires you? Ask about the mistakes they made while doing something you like, or what helped them overcome a challenge that you face, too. Your own genuine interest will prompt interesting personal interview questions, energize the conversation, and make things more compelling for your audience.

5. Avoid yes-or-no questions

If you ask a question that can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no” answer, you risk not learning anything new. Open-ended questions will get a better answer because they give your interviewee the space to answer the way they want. Remember your interrogative pronouns and ask who? what? when? where? why? and how? Instead of “Did you always want to be an actor?” ask “What sparked your love of acting?” or “When did you first know you wanted to be an actor?”

Try to get them to tell stories, and let them tell them on their own terms. A simple “what happened?” can elicit all sorts of interesting insights. The phrase “tell me about…” signals you want to hear their perspective. Getting them talking like this can reveal all sorts of new details and information that you can then follow up on.

6. Don’t be afraid to ask the dumb questions

Not everyone in your audience will be on the same level of familiarity with your interviewee or have their expertise. If they get in the weeds or use some industry jargon, ask “what does that mean?” to get a more straightforward answer. This has the additional benefit of putting the interviewee in a position of knowledge, which can make them feel more at ease. Be sure to intersperse these with more probing and complex questions, otherwise, your interview may become too simple and boring.

7. Plan your follow-up questions

Follow-ups are indispensable in a good interview. By asking clear, specific questions and simple follow-ups, you can usually avoid long-winded answers that knock the discussion off course. Follow-ups also help you and your guest reflect upon and analyze their answers. Try a simple “how?” or “tell me more,” anytime you want to dig deeper into an idea. You don’t necessarily have to list follow-ups when writing your interview questions, but it can help you stay organized if you at least mark the spots you think will benefit from extra questioning.

8. Give them the wheel

Cap off your interview by asking “is there anything I didn’t ask that you’d like to talk about?” This works in a variety of interview situations and ensures that your interviewee gets to accomplish their own goal for the interview. You never know what little nuggets of information your guest hasn’t had a chance to reveal.

As a courtesy to your guest and a service to your audience, it can be helpful to also ask for actionable information, like “how can readers or listeners follow your work online?”

5 tips for a successful interview

Once you’ve figured out how to write good questions and drawn up a list in preparation, there are a few things you should do to make sure the interview is a success.

• Be professional. Be timely and thoughtful when communicating with your interviewee. Send them calendar invites for important related dates, and be on time for the interview itself. This shows that you respect them and the time they’re taking to be interviewed by you.
• Check all your equipment twice. Make sure any recording equipment you plan to use is working and has enough battery life and storage space for your needs. Having an equipment failure in the middle of a good interview is embarrassing and takes up the precious time you have with your interviewee.
• Put your guest at ease. Chat with your interviewee a bit to help them relax. Explain your interview process to them so that they know what to expect.
• Let it flow, and go along. An interview is a conversation, not an interrogation, and sometimes the best stuff comes when the discussion goes in unexpected directions. Remember, the goal is to get something new from them — so if they start talking about something you’ve never heard them talk about, see where it goes.
• Shut up. Try to keep your questions succinct, and make sure you don’t ramble when you ask questions or react to your guest. It’s okay to talk to provide context or perspective. But let your guest dominate the conversation — listeners want to hear from them, not you.
• Silence is power. Silence never feels comfortable, but unless you’re live streaming, you can easily edit it out. If you let a pause linger, your interviewee might use it to work out a better answer to a question, or rush to fill it with information — maybe more than they meant to reveal.

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How to Write Effective Qualitative Interview Questions

Qualitative interviewing is an effective technique to quickly understand more about a target user group. It is a key skill that any aspiring user researcher should develop. It is important to carefully craft the questions to ensure the sessions run efficiently and get the desired information. This article outlines best practice tips on creating effective session guides, ensuring your questions produce great results.

Don’t Ask Leading Questions

A leading question guides the respondent to a desired answer by implying that there is a correct answer. People tend to provide socially desirable answers, so if you ask a question that guides them, they will likely provide one that they believe you want to hear. Leading questions can be used by people to persuade someone. They should not be used when trying to uncover new information or understand an audience. They reduce the objectivity of the session, and therefore, reduce the reliability of the results.

Example: Leading: ‘Why would you prefer to use our product?’ Better: ‘What are your thoughts about using our product?

In the leading example, it implies that the respondent prefers the product and is enquiring as to why. The respondent may list a bunch of reasons that they like the product but may leave out crucial information where they believe the product could improve. Asking about their opinions and thoughts will provide them with a platform to discuss the product freely.

Example: Leading: Would you prefer to use the product to improve efficiencies or to gain an overview? Better: Why might you use this product?

In this example, the interviewer provides two reasons why someone might use a product. The interviewer may have only considered the two reasons why someone may use the product. Simply asking why they may use the product achieves the same goal, but also allows the respondent to consider other options.

To avoid leading questions, act as if you know nothing of the topic. Note down what you would ask if you have no information at all. Keep the questions simple, neutral and free from any words with connotations or emotions. It is also best to have an independent observer assess the topic, as it is easier for them to have an unbiased opinion on the matter.

Behavioural, Attitudinal

People often hold a belief that does not match with their behaviours. Using a mixture of attitudinal and behavioural questions uncovers what a person does, but also their thoughts about their actions. Attitudinal questions are used to understand their opinions and motivations. Behavioural questions are used to find out how a participant does something. It is best to utilise a mixture.

Example: Attitudinal: How often should you brush your teeth? Behavioural: How many times did you brush your teeth last week?

Try to keep all behavioural questions about the user’s past, as future behaviours are influenced by opinions and attitudes. It is best practice to repeat questions from a different angle. Don’t be afraid of users repeating themselves or going over a topic multiple times.

Ask Open-Ended Questions Instead of Closed Questions

Open-ended questions are ones that require more than one word to answer. Closed questions result in either a yes/no situation. Open-ended questions are used to find out people’s goals, motivations and pain points. They provide an opportunity for the participant to speak freely on the topic.

Example: Yes/No: Do you like coffee? Open: What are your thoughts on coffee?

Closed questions should be avoided unless you want to either clarify to gain more context to the user’s situation. Yes/No questions close down conversations and can be considered as quantitative. The following examples are both fine to use in an interview, as they will put other details into perspective.

Context: Do you drink coffee? Clarify: You mentioned you drink coffee, correct?

When creating your questionnaire, try and stick with ‘how’, ‘why’, ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ questions.

Don’t Use Double-Barreled Questions

Sometimes interviewers get excited and want to ask multiple things at once. Double-barreled questions touch on more than one topic. This can be overwhelming to answer, and respondents may either try to answer both at once or answer only one part of the question. If you want to ask something on multiple topics, it is best to split them into two different questions.

Example: Double-barreled: What do you like about coffee and new coffee products? Better: What do you like about coffee products?

It is normal in casual conversation to ask questions in such a manner. Interviewing is best when the questions are short and to the point, focusing on one topic.

Differentiate Between Quantitative and Qualitative Questions

Quantitative and qualitative questions both have their own strengths and weaknesses. Quantitative questions are typically reserved for surveys but can be used in interviewing to add some context and allow the interviewer to ask more follow-up questions. They mostly uncover ‘who’ and ‘what’. Qualitative questions will provide detailed information on the topic of interest, uncovering the ‘why’ and ‘how’.

Examples of quantitative questions:

• Numerical answers: How many coffees do you drink a day?
• Preferences: What type of coffee drink do you prefer?
• Single word answers: What brand of coffee do you drink?

It is not immediately obvious and clear-cut the quantitative nature of these questions. You can tell through the low complexity of data gathered. If you ask these questions to participants, you will get a straightforward answer. However, the issue is that the responses are not statistically valid, and require further investigation. You can better use your time in an in-depth one on one session asking qualitative questions such as:

Examples of qualitative questions:

• Recount your morning routine.
• Why do you prefer one brand over another?
• Why do you drink coffee everyday?

Shifting to why and how people do things, outlining goals, motivations, pain points and delights gives a much more in-depth perspective. These insights can be validated later through other techniques, but interviewing is the quickest and easiest way to gather them.

For qualitative interviewing, there are few clear best practices. Each interviewer has their own way of gathering information and forming questions. The tips above are there to guide you but are not definitive rules that one cannot break. I hope these help to elevate your interviewing process and gather better insights.

John Lassen

John started his career in market research and marketing where he constantly championed the experience of the users and customer journeys. John jumped into the profession of UX Research because of the ability to create products and understand users on a qualitative level. As an advocate of design thinking, he is constantly in touch with users, creating strategic outputs and reinforcing the business value of research.

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Conducting Research Interviews

The interviewer mindset, quick tips for preparing, developing questions.

• Conducting the Interview
• Applying & Using the Interview

While the research interview is a one-on-one interaction, it's not a normal conversation. As the interviewer, it's expected that you:

• Are knowledgeable on the topic of the interview (this may require some background research)
• Are able to structure and guide the interview to keep it relevant but flexible
• Are able to remember and interpret the information gained in the interview
• Are sensitive to the interviewee's position and their rights
• Do preliminary research on the topic and the interviewee so that you enter the interview with an understanding of what will be discussed.
• Reflect on your goals. What should the interview accomplish? What is important to have recorded in the interview, and why is it important? How can you make the process easy for the interviewee?
• Create a list of topics and questions to explore during the interview. This should not be a strict checklist or a script; rather, it should function as a guide to ensure that you cover all of the content and that the interview stays focused.
• Create an open line of dialog with your interviewee before the interview so that you are comfortable with each other. This can involve going over the process, offering to answer any of their questions, verifying your time and place for the interview, etc.
• Choose and thoroughly familiarize yourself with your recording equipment to minimize any potential issues that may arise during the actual interview.
• Choose an interview space that is relaxed, comfortable, and quiet. You are having a conversation with your interviewee, not an interrogation.
• If you have never interviewed before, feel free to practice for the interview with friends, family, or peers. This will make sure you are prepared for the real thing.

Characteristics of good interview questions

• Open-ended and elicit a long response from the interviewee (can't be answered yes/no or with one word)
• Focus on the experience of the interviewee
• Don't lead the interviewee toward a particular response
• Address a single issue/point (i.e. don't ask multi-part questions)

Writing interview questions

Harvard's Department of Sociology provides some steps to help guide you in the process of writing interview questions (see the link to the guide below).

• Write down the larger research questions of the study. Outline the broad areas of knowledge that are relevant to answering these questions.
• Develop questions within each of these major areas, shaping them to fit particular kinds of respondents. The goal here is to tap into their experiences and expertise.
• Adjust the language of the interview according to the respondent (child, professional, etc.).
• Take care to word questions so that respondents are motivated to answer as completely and honestly as possible.
• Ask “how” questions rather than “why” questions to get stories of process rather than acceptable “accounts” of behavior. “How did you come to join this group . . .?”
• Develop probes that will elicit more detailed and elaborate responses to key questions. The more detail, the better!
• Begin the interview with a “warm-up” question—something that the respondent can answer easily and at some length (though not too long). It doesn’t have to pertain directly to what you are trying to find out (although it might), but this initial rapport-building will put you more at ease with one another and thus will make the rest of the interview flow more smoothly.
• Think about the logical flow of the interview. What topics should come first? What follows more or less “naturally”? This may take some adjustment after several interviews.
• Difficult or potentially embarrassing questions should be asked toward the end of the interview, when rapport has been established.
• The last question should provide some closure for the interview, and leave the respondent feeling empowered, listened to, or otherwise glad that they talked to you.
• Strategies for Qualitative Interviews This handy guide from Harvard's Department of Sociology provides guidance on getting into the interviewer mindset as well as developing and writing interview questions.

Depending on the nature of your assignment or research, you may or may not need to record and transcribe the interview. Review the pros and cons to determine whether recording and transcribing will be worthwhile for you.

• Helps you to recall more details of the interview
• Helps you to thoroughly examine the interview
• It allows other researchers to interpret and reuse the data in new ways
• May be off-putting to interviewees or make them feel pressured
• Transcribing is a time-consuming process; even using a transcription software requires a detailed review of the text

"Strategies for Qualitative Interviews" (n.d.) Harvard. See link above..

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I've Been Offered Every Job I've Interviewed For. Here Are 5 Questions I Ask Interviewers. Career consultant Kendal Lindstrom says these five questions are the winning formula for landing the role.

By Tim Paradis • May 9, 2024

Key Takeaways

• Kendal Lindstrom started a career-change consultancy after struggling to change jobs.
• She shared her strategy for acing job interviews, which includes having five key questions ready.
• They focus on areas such as company culture, team dynamics, and the employer's long-term plans.

This article originally appeared on Business Insider .

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kendal Lindstrom, 25, who lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. She runs a career-change consulting firm named Doux and works in tech. She recently posted a TikTok about five questions she has ready for a job interview. Lindstrom says she believes asking at least some of these questions is why she's always landed a role she interviewed for. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.

I started Doux because I never liked to be put in a box in terms of my career. Coming out of college, I thought, "I just want to be known as the girl in fashion." I was so wrong. But I didn't know how to pivot into a new industry . It took me two years of connecting, trying, and failing. I found the framework of what Doux is now by failing.

After working in fashion, I got myself into medical sales. I then switched to tech because that's where my passions lie. It took me two years to go from fashion to medical sales. But from the day I decided I wanted to be a tech consultant, it only took me three weeks to get my offer letter.

The difference was I knew how to write my résumé. I knew how to become the candidate that they needed.

My formula is to map your résumé to the career you're going to, not the career you've been in. To get to my current job, I created a résumé that was unstoppable.

Usually, I tell my clients to reach out to the hiring manager. In this case, the hiring manager got to me within minutes of me submitting my résumé. The interview process was extensive, but, like I always tell my clients, it's about follow-ups.

I followed up three times because they had great candidates. But I needed to stay in front, and I needed to be the person they chose.

I had the drive

It's funny when I look back and talk to the executives who hired me. They're like: "You had no business being in tech. You had nothing on your résumé that told us that you would do a good job in this. But the way you presented yourself, it was a no-brainer to hire you because we knew you would get it." So, it's often more how you're presenting yourself in a professional realm rather than what you're saying to answer the questions.

I had drive, and that's what they were looking for. They were looking for someone young to grow with the company. If they wanted someone young, they weren't going to get all the experience in the software that they needed. But I was eager to learn, and however many hours outside work that took, I was willing to do it. I really drove home that it doesn't stop at 5 p.m. My job stops when my job is done.

Each day after work, I spent 30 minutes reading a training book my company had given me. Then, I tried to apply the knowledge for 30 minutes. The next day, I would get time on my boss's calendar and say: "This is what I learned yesterday. Tell me how you have seen this applied in scenarios with a client."

It took me about a year to really digest everything. It was tough, but it came down to whether I was willing to ask questions when I needed help rather than having too much pride and not asking anyone.

I've done a lot of interviews for my age because I kept my options open no matter where I was in my career. I've never wanted to be stagnant. So I have done upwards of 10 or 11 interviews, and I've never been told no because my goal was to make an employer feel like I had their best interests at heart and I wanted to be part of their company, which meant I needed to sell myself as a solution. And it's more about the questions you ask than the answers you get.

I have pretty thick skin

When I worked in medical sales — or even with some of the comments on my TikTok — so much was about my image. I was like, "What does my blonde hair have to do with the knowledge that I have?" Not that it ever hurt my feelings because I have pretty thick skin. In any industry, there will be people who would want to discredit someone's abilities because of how they look. But at the end of the day, I can use my brain to where people are like, "We need to listen to you."

@kendallindstrom it's more about the questions you ask than the answers you get. people want to talk about themselves. #interviewquestions #jobinterview #resume #careerchange #womeninbusines ♬ original sound - DOUX | CAREER CHANGE MGMT

Some of the comments on my TikTok have been so far off the mark. At the time of my interviews for my current job, I didn't have a website, and my social media wasn't publicly available. So, I got the job because of the things I said and the questions I asked, and not because of my appearance.

These are my five key questions:

What's the company culture like?

The first thing I tell people to ask is about company culture. That's a big one. It's such a make-it-or-break-it for enjoying your job. I wanted my audience to know that asking about it is so important because if you're miserable in your job, you're only setting yourself up to fail.

What's the lowdown on my predecessor?

The second one is, "What did the person who held this role before me do that was appreciated but not required based on the job description?" I suggest this one because I want my audience to put themselves in the role already. It's an assumptive selling tactic. I always say go into the interview and sell yourself.

I asked that question one time — "What are you going to miss most about this person?" — and the interviewer said, "Oh, they got Starbucks all the time." And I was like, "Great, I guess we'll be getting Starbucks for the office all the time."

What do my colleagues require?

The third question was, "How can I best suit the needs of my direct counterparts?" That came from wanting to understand — in the most professional way — the team you're walking into. It helps me understand and identify how I would fit into the team.

I've seen teams before where they just don't get along. But you don't know that until you sit down on the first day. And at that point, it's already too late. You're either leaving, or you've got to deal with this until you can figure out another job.

How successful is the team?

No. 4 is what the current state of the department is in reference to the bottom line. That has to do with asking about sales, of course, but I'm also asking: "Am I walking into a failing department? Are you expecting me to turn things around? Are you expecting me to just take the blame for something that's already failing? Or are you guys seeing numbers you've never seen before and need more people?" And, if so, "What did you do to see those numbers?"

What does the company's future look like?

My fifth question is my favorite. It's, "What's the company's three-year, five-year, and 10-year plan?" I love this one because I've never walked into a job and thought, "I'm only going to be here for one year," or "I'm only doing this to collect a paycheck." I always say, "Think like the CEO." I never want to go into a job and strive to just be an associate. That's just where you start.

All you really need — or maybe have time for — is one of these questions. So many people on my TikTok said, "That is too many questions. You're so high maintenance." I was like, "Just use one of them, and they'll be blown away." Because you're starting a whole other conversation that doesn't have to do with their questions for you. These are just concepts that I hope people can take with them as they go — little nuggets — to nail these interviews.

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Why writing by hand beats typing for thinking and learning

Jonathan Lambert

If you're like many digitally savvy Americans, it has likely been a while since you've spent much time writing by hand.

The laborious process of tracing out our thoughts, letter by letter, on the page is becoming a relic of the past in our screen-dominated world, where text messages and thumb-typed grocery lists have replaced handwritten letters and sticky notes. Electronic keyboards offer obvious efficiency benefits that have undoubtedly boosted our productivity — imagine having to write all your emails longhand.

To keep up, many schools are introducing computers as early as preschool, meaning some kids may learn the basics of typing before writing by hand.

But giving up this slower, more tactile way of expressing ourselves may come at a significant cost, according to a growing body of research that's uncovering the surprising cognitive benefits of taking pen to paper, or even stylus to iPad — for both children and adults.

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In kids, studies show that tracing out ABCs, as opposed to typing them, leads to better and longer-lasting recognition and understanding of letters. Writing by hand also improves memory and recall of words, laying down the foundations of literacy and learning. In adults, taking notes by hand during a lecture, instead of typing, can lead to better conceptual understanding of material.

"There's actually some very important things going on during the embodied experience of writing by hand," says Ramesh Balasubramaniam , a neuroscientist at the University of California, Merced. "It has important cognitive benefits."

While those benefits have long been recognized by some (for instance, many authors, including Jennifer Egan and Neil Gaiman , draft their stories by hand to stoke creativity), scientists have only recently started investigating why writing by hand has these effects.

A slew of recent brain imaging research suggests handwriting's power stems from the relative complexity of the process and how it forces different brain systems to work together to reproduce the shapes of letters in our heads onto the page.

Your brain on handwriting

Both handwriting and typing involve moving our hands and fingers to create words on a page. But handwriting, it turns out, requires a lot more fine-tuned coordination between the motor and visual systems. This seems to more deeply engage the brain in ways that support learning.

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"Handwriting is probably among the most complex motor skills that the brain is capable of," says Marieke Longcamp , a cognitive neuroscientist at Aix-Marseille Université.

Gripping a pen nimbly enough to write is a complicated task, as it requires your brain to continuously monitor the pressure that each finger exerts on the pen. Then, your motor system has to delicately modify that pressure to re-create each letter of the words in your head on the page.

"Your fingers have to each do something different to produce a recognizable letter," says Sophia Vinci-Booher , an educational neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University. Adding to the complexity, your visual system must continuously process that letter as it's formed. With each stroke, your brain compares the unfolding script with mental models of the letters and words, making adjustments to fingers in real time to create the letters' shapes, says Vinci-Booher.

That's not true for typing.

To type "tap" your fingers don't have to trace out the form of the letters — they just make three relatively simple and uniform movements. In comparison, it takes a lot more brainpower, as well as cross-talk between brain areas, to write than type.

Recent brain imaging studies bolster this idea. A study published in January found that when students write by hand, brain areas involved in motor and visual information processing " sync up " with areas crucial to memory formation, firing at frequencies associated with learning.

"We don't see that [synchronized activity] in typewriting at all," says Audrey van der Meer , a psychologist and study co-author at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She suggests that writing by hand is a neurobiologically richer process and that this richness may confer some cognitive benefits.

Other experts agree. "There seems to be something fundamental about engaging your body to produce these shapes," says Robert Wiley , a cognitive psychologist at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. "It lets you make associations between your body and what you're seeing and hearing," he says, which might give the mind more footholds for accessing a given concept or idea.

Those extra footholds are especially important for learning in kids, but they may give adults a leg up too. Wiley and others worry that ditching handwriting for typing could have serious consequences for how we all learn and think.

What might be lost as handwriting wanes

The clearest consequence of screens and keyboards replacing pen and paper might be on kids' ability to learn the building blocks of literacy — letters.

"Letter recognition in early childhood is actually one of the best predictors of later reading and math attainment," says Vinci-Booher. Her work suggests the process of learning to write letters by hand is crucial for learning to read them.

"When kids write letters, they're just messy," she says. As kids practice writing "A," each iteration is different, and that variability helps solidify their conceptual understanding of the letter.

Research suggests kids learn to recognize letters better when seeing variable handwritten examples, compared with uniform typed examples.

This helps develop areas of the brain used during reading in older children and adults, Vinci-Booher found.

"This could be one of the ways that early experiences actually translate to long-term life outcomes," she says. "These visually demanding, fine motor actions bake in neural communication patterns that are really important for learning later on."

Ditching handwriting instruction could mean that those skills don't get developed as well, which could impair kids' ability to learn down the road.

"If young children are not receiving any handwriting training, which is very good brain stimulation, then their brains simply won't reach their full potential," says van der Meer. "It's scary to think of the potential consequences."

Many states are trying to avoid these risks by mandating cursive instruction. This year, California started requiring elementary school students to learn cursive , and similar bills are moving through state legislatures in several states, including Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina and Wisconsin. (So far, evidence suggests that it's the writing by hand that matters, not whether it's print or cursive.)

Slowing down and processing information

For adults, one of the main benefits of writing by hand is that it simply forces us to slow down.

During a meeting or lecture, it's possible to type what you're hearing verbatim. But often, "you're not actually processing that information — you're just typing in the blind," says van der Meer. "If you take notes by hand, you can't write everything down," she says.

The relative slowness of the medium forces you to process the information, writing key words or phrases and using drawing or arrows to work through ideas, she says. "You make the information your own," she says, which helps it stick in the brain.

Such connections and integration are still possible when typing, but they need to be made more intentionally. And sometimes, efficiency wins out. "When you're writing a long essay, it's obviously much more practical to use a keyboard," says van der Meer.

Still, given our long history of using our hands to mark meaning in the world, some scientists worry about the more diffuse consequences of offloading our thinking to computers.

"We're foisting a lot of our knowledge, extending our cognition, to other devices, so it's only natural that we've started using these other agents to do our writing for us," says Balasubramaniam.

It's possible that this might free up our minds to do other kinds of hard thinking, he says. Or we might be sacrificing a fundamental process that's crucial for the kinds of immersive cognitive experiences that enable us to learn and think at our full potential.

Balasubramaniam stresses, however, that we don't have to ditch digital tools to harness the power of handwriting. So far, research suggests that scribbling with a stylus on a screen activates the same brain pathways as etching ink on paper. It's the movement that counts, he says, not its final form.

Jonathan Lambert is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance journalist who covers science, health and policy.

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