No, You're Not Entitled to an Answer...and other classic interview blunders
Updated: 7 days ago
Six common interview mistakes and fixes, so people trust you and keep participating
Part 3 of our series: Should You Interview? · An Interview Is Not a Sandwich · Interview Blunders (this) · Don’t Interview in Sandals
Last updated: October 2026
Interviewing for data collection is deceptively simple. Ask a question. Get an answer. But simple is complicated. There is nowhere to hide in simple. That’s why interviews are easy to get wrong.
Having conducted over 500 interviews and focus groups, we have bumbled through our fair share of interview blunders (literally everything listed in this post and more). And we continue to see persistent problems in interviewing when we are on the other side of the table or observe our colleagues. There’s no judgement here. Making and revisiting mistakes is a great way to learn.
In the spirit of learning, here are our top six interview mistakes to help you expect and correct them before getting into a sticky situation.
1. Treating the interview like a talking survey
Can you use ratings, scales, or multiple choices in an interview?
Technically, yes. But why would you? The value of an interview is the non-quantifiable human factor. When you have the rare luxury of time with people to explore their experiences, perspectives, memories, and stories PLUS you can prompt, clarify, and go deeper, why would you waste time with anything else?
Treating an interview like a talking survey is methodological equivalent of a meeting that could have been an email. Oof! Learn more about when it might be the right time for a survey in our blog post, Should You Create a Survey?
What if I need to survey over the phone or in-person?
Great! We love accessibility. A survey can be administered orally. It's still a survey though. The delivery does not transform it into an interview.
How do I make an interview not a survey?
Start by focusing on open-ended how and what questions, with follow-up prompts for examples and stories. But, there is no shortcut to building real skill and confidence through learning and practice.
Want to learn on the job? We design interview guides and teach staff at community-serving organizations how to interview with our Capacity-Building service. Here, you'll get a guide and the knowhow.
2. Assigning just anyone to interview
Who should conduct an interview?
The “tool” isn’t the interview guide; it is the interviewer. Not just anyone can interview. It takes skill, confidence, and finesse to understand how to guide people in and out of different reflections in a way that is intuitive for them, respectful, safe, and useful. Unfortunately, interviews are often handed off as "grunt work" to emerging evaluators, subcontractors, students, and now AI. That's where we start to see avoidable mistakes with clunky questions, awkward vibes, and low-quality data.
At AND, our relationships with participants, partners, and communities is our most valued component of the evaluation. So, our most senior consultants interview (even when we have subcontractors). That way, we show up consistently in the role of listener to ensure that everyone feels heard and understood. Is this an expensive choice? Not really. The most expensive interviews waste time, break trust, and result in data that are thrown out. We avoid all that by doing it right the first time.
How do you build interview capacity as an organization?
Prioritize it. Invest in professional development and adequate supervision. When working with students and entry-level staff, ensure that they have a chance to observe an interview done well (to set the expectation), and are observed by an experienced interviewer who can catch and correct issues. Plus, you can always build the practice in with low-stakes interviews. Get newbies to facilitate team meetings, practice interviewing each other, or interview participants once there is a high-degree of trust in a long-standing relationship (and the topic isn't sensitive or high-risk).
3. Losing sight of the evaluation question
The interview isn’t a free-for-all to ask anything. Often, we see people ask irrelevant questions because they started with a template or reused an interview guide from another project. For the interview to yield relevant data that answers the global evaluation question, interviewers must craft questions intentionally so that they serve a clear purpose. For example, we craft semi-structured interview guides like this to ensure that each question makes sense for the context. And, it makes it easier to show the logic behind the question for collaborators, clients, or advisors to give feedback.
Question | Rationale | Alignment to Evaluation Question(s) |
Can you tell me a little bit about your role at [organization]? | Establish context | N/A |
What is the best part of your job?
| Start with a positive to ease into the conversation & prompt for a recent example | What is working well at [organization]? |
What gets in the way of you getting to do [the best thing] on a regular basis?
| Follow positive thread and begin prompting for barriers with a tangible example/ process | What is not working well at [organization]? |
Can you ask participants the evaluation questions in an interview?
Technically, yes. But, this results in flat data. Take the example above. If we asked someone what is and is not working well in their organization, we'd probably get a generic list that we could probably guess without even asking (time, resources, money, the general state of the world). And then what? How would we use generic data to create meaningful recommendations that support learning and doing?
How do you connect interview questions to evaluation questions?
Break the evaluation questions down into their component pieces and then ask the underlying questions from interviewee's unique position and vantage point. This will create richer and multi-textured insights. Literally everything else falls into place. Prompting for examples becomes easier because the questions are specific (without being narrow) and support recall. And, we can dive deeper into specific examples, points in time, or processes that are unique to this person, role, and organization. The result? Sharp specifics that support meaningful next steps. That's the good stuff right there.
To go further, we use arts-based methods paired with a qualitative interview or focus group to better elicit those rich details. Memories, stories, examples, multi-sensory details are all easier to get to with a creative activity and a more imaginative interview. We teach both the arts-based technique and imaginative interviewing in our Arts-Based Methods for Evaluators course. So the key is balance. Anchor every interview question in the evaluation's global questions, but don't ask the evaluation questions directly. Ask what you need to know to satisfy the global questions.
4. Asking questions badly
What makes a qualitative interview question good?
Good questions are simple, relevant, and answerable. The interviewer can say very little, and get a lot. Here are a few examples of bad questions (or bad ways of asking questions), what they look like, and simple fixes.
Leading questions
A leading question or pointed question guides someone toward the answer they think you want to hear. Often, there is a subtle judgement baked into the question.
Example: You like your job, right?
The problem: resulting data aren't trustworthy because there wasn't a reasonable way for someone to answer fully or honestly.
The fix: Stick to open-ended questions that don't impose a judgement or sway the answer. If you want to ask about positives and negatives, break the question into two steps so you have time to explore both fully without discounting either response.
Open ended examples: Can you tell me a little bit about your job? What is it like to work in [X role]? What is it like to work for [X organization]?
Two-parter examples: What is the best part of your job? What is the worst part of your job?
Double-barrelled questions
A double-barrelled question includes more than one focal point at a time, making the question confusing or cluttered.
Example: When was a time you felt most at home and what does “home” mean to you?
The problem: when someone has a lot of think about at once, they are likely to get overwhelmed and lose their train of thought. This also leads to some misuse of interview time because the interviewer will likely need to back up, and prompt with clarifying questions to get the interviewee back on track. Or, if time is tight, the interviewer will have to move on and then something important might be lost. The fix: Ask the simplest version of the question with just one topic or idea per question. Then, take a deep breath. Once someone has answered, prompt for an example or specifying detail.
Example: What does "home" feel like for you? Where do you feel most at home?
Explaining rather than asking a question
This problem is accompanied by all the best intentions, and is usually a result of inexperience. It happens when someone asks the question, anticipates that the interviewee won't understand the question's meaning, and then proceeds to qualify the question or provide additional context without being asked.
Example: When was a time you felt most at home? What I mean by that is if home feels comfortable and safe, when does that happen for you?
The problems: unsolicited explanation can be patronizing and kill the vibe, and the interviewer may accidentally back into a leading question by giving away too much information that biases the interviewee's answer.
The fix: Less is more. Ensure questions are simple and don't need explanation. Then, be ready with a reframe if there is another way to ask the question that could also work if someone asks for one or it would be helpful to break up the question into a few steps.
Simple question: What does "home" mean to you?
Reframe alternatives: Can you share a few examples of things or characteristics that make a place feel like home? When you think of the concept of home, what feelings or characteristics come up for you?
Answering your own question
When there is a good vibe and the interview feels conversational, it is really easy to participate by sharing your two cents, answering the questions from your perspective, or anticipating what the interviewee might say.
But, finishing someone else's sentence is only cute in rom coms. It's not a great sign in an interview.
Examples: me too, I totally know what you mean, it's just like this time when I..., Well that explains why you did X..., X must feel like Y for you because Z
The problems: jumping in too much switches the focus from the interviewee to the interviewer. And, no offence, but no one cares what the interviewer thinks. The interviewer's anecdotes, ideas, and examples will not count as data. So, it's a waste. And, it can become frustrating, patronizing, or inappropriate for the interviewee who, as a result, may stop sharing.
The fix: Be human, but don't be a brunch friend. Just ask the question and then stop talking. Demonstrate empathy with non-verbal social cues (explored more in the next post, Don't Interview in Sandals) and warm but neutral follow-up comments like, "that you so much for sharing that with me." If you must take a time out to share an aside, use your discretion and practice minimum viable commentary.
Forgetting to use silence
Silence is a great question. Okay, it's not a question. But, it is an invitation for the participant to fill the space. Pausing gives someone permission to catch their breath, improvise, dive a little deeper, remember something they forgot to say earlier, or deliver a beautiful nugget of wisdom. Plus, it can be reassuring. You're not in a rush. You don't need them to recall everything all at once. There is time. We're all good.
The problems: moving too quickly between questions can give people whiplash or feel panicked. This can create a weird vibe or missed opportunities for unstructured feedback (which is usually the best kind).
The fix: Breathe. Go slow. Build in natural pauses between topics and questions. We keep a tea or water bottle on hand during an interview as a reminder to take a sip and let the other person fill the space. At a key moment in the interview, just lean forward. Don't do anything else. Just lean in.
At the same time, don't overdo it. Long pauses can be awkward, not reassuring. You don't want the interviewee to think you're suspicious of what they are saying, zoning out, or checking your email.
5. Ignoring the flow and vibe
How do you get the pacing right for a qualitative interview?
It takes practice to understand when to linger or move on in an interview. We practice every new interview guide to get the timing right and get a feel for how much space we need for key topics, transitions, and breathing room.
A lot of important work happens in between questions. Pay attention to body language, tone, and silence. If someone is impatient, short, or blunt, pick up the pace. If they are tripping over their words, struggling to recall examples, or emotional, slow down. And, if you build to a crescendo of insight, pause and savour it! Plus, we find that interviews are not a 1:1 ratio of question to answer. Sometimes, we need a few questions and prompts to get to an insightful reflection about an evaluation topic. Making sure we understand the context, helping take a few steps to support recall, and doing some meaning-making together in real-time helps help the conversation gentle and productive, rather than an extractive checklist.
The difference between a good interviewer and a great one is their skill in creating and holding space (for what, when, and why). You can learn more about how we hone this craft in the next post, Don't Interview in Sandals.
6. Assuming that questions are entitled to answers
Just because we ask doesn't mean someone has to answer. For an interview to be ethical, the participant must always have the option to stop, pause, skip, circle back, or just not. And, consent might be exercised in lots of ways beyond asking to stop. Shrugging, trailing off, one-word answers (not resulting from a close-ended question), sunken-in or closed off body language, many consecutive "I don't knows" are all signs that the interviewee doesn't want to talk about it. So, it is important to pay attention and know when to reframe and ask a different way, pause, or stop asking.
The bottom line
Every one of these blunders comes from the same place: inexperience or shortcutting the preparation needed. No judgement. Bad interviews are good teachers. To get it right, invest in learning, careful planning, and relationship-building with the person or group you hope will answer your questions. When people trust you, see the effort you've put in (because it feels effortless to talk to you), and can follow a simple logical conversational flow, they'll share more than you'd ever think to ask.
Want to keep sharpening your interview practice?
Interviews are only as good as the interviewer.
If you're a community-serving organization, we can help
Sharpen your team's skills with Custom Training & Workshops
Develop interview guides, ready for your team to use with Light Touch Consulting
Prep an interview guide and teach your staff how to interview with Capacity Building
Collect interview data as part of an Evaluation Project
For fellow evaluators: stress-test a tricky interview guide with Evaluation & Research Advising, or work with us on a project at whatever level of involvement works for you.
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