Interview Guidelines Handout: Module 2 Assessment
The interview you conduct for this assessment is similar to an informational interview. Requesting and conducting an informational interview is a way to engage in mentorship with peers and leaders in your field or gain firsthand knowledge from real-world experience in a particular area.
Here are parameters and guidance for conducting an interview.
MakeContact
It may seem daunting to reach out to a peer or a leader to ask for an interview. However, engaged professionals often are happy to share their experiences. The key is to be polite and respectful of your contact’s time. To find possible contacts, inquire with former or current colleagues, alumni or alumni organizations, or professional organizations. If you don’t know someone in public health informatics, for example, members of your personal network may.
Use professional channels to make contact, such as e-mail or telephone.
Preparation
One of the best ways to be respectful of your interview subject’s time is to be prepared. Have your questions prepared ahead of time and well understood by you. That does not mean you cannot improvise with a follow-up question if the conversation follows an interesting path, but it is important to have an established framework in place in order to stay on topic. In fact, a solid framework is what helps you recognize when a new path is worth pursuing or actually off-topic.
Other preparation tips include: dress professionally, target arriving 10–15 minutes early, and use courteous and professional language.
For this Assessment, your online classroom contains questions that you are required to ask. In addition, you are required to generate three of your own questions. For the purposes of your assessment, record your three original questions here to submit with your completed assessment:
Three Original Questions for Public Health Nurse Informaticist
1.
2.
3.
Conduct the Interview
Agree upon a duration for the interview, and then be sure to respect that. You will lead the interview, but ideally your interview subject will do most of the talking. Use your pre-written questions as guideposts to keep on track and on time—a new question is a way to respectfully redirect if you have strayed too far from the topic or goal of the interview.
You are allowed to record the interview, and recording may allow you to more actively listen.You can then refer back to the interview to extract the most salient portions of the conversation for your later analysis. (Tip: Jot down the time stamp from your recording device during especially salient parts—this will help you locate them more quickly later.)Taking written notes is also acceptable.
You must ask permission to record the interview subject before recording.After pressing record, state the date, time, name of the interview subject, your name, and briefly state the purpose of the interview.
Do not upload your interview recording to social media or any other website that would qualify as distributing this interview publicly.
E-mail, Online Meeting Software, or Phone Interviews
If a public health nurse informaticist is not accessible in your area, you may conduct an e-mail or phone interview. For e-mail interviews, place your questions in the body of the e-mail and request that answers be typed in the body of the return e-mail. This provides a time and date stamp.
For online meeting software interviews that have a record option, be sure to follow the same permission and uploading guidance noted above.
For phone meetings, record the date and time that the call begins in your notes. If you have access to a recording mechanism for phone calls, be sure to follow the same permission and uploading guidance noted above.
Proof of Interview
If you conducted an e-mail interview, submit a copy of that e-mail with your assessment submission.
If you conducted an in-person or phone interview, provide one of the following as proof of conducting the interview:
Ask your interview subject to send you an e-mail confirmation that attests to having participated in the interview, and then submit a copy of that e-mail with your assessment submission.
Or, print these guidelines and ask your interview subject to sign this form below.
I, ______________________________________, attest to having been interviewed by
__________________________________________, for the purposes of a class
assessment for.
Signature: __________________________________________________________
More Information
For more on informational interviews, explore these websites:
University of California—Berkley: Career Center. (n.d.). Informational interviewing. Retrieved July 2, 2019, from https://career.berkeley.edu/Info/InfoInterview
University of Illinois: The Career Center. (n.d.). Conduct an informational interview. Retrieved July 2, 2019, from https://www.careercenter.illinois.edu/instructable/conduct-informational-interview