A great podcast interview can make you forget you're listening to an interview at all.
The conversation flows naturally. The guest shares stories you haven't heard before. The host asks questions that seem to arrive at exactly the right moment. And by the end, you've learned something, gained a new perspective, or simply enjoyed listening to two people talk.
It sounds effortless, but behind most great podcast interviews is a surprising amount of preparation.
Whether you're interviewing an industry expert, a business leader, or someone with an extraordinary personal story, preparing for a podcast interview is about more than writing a list of questions. It's about creating the conditions for an engaging, authentic conversation. Here's how to do it.
1. Start With the Purpose of the Interview
Before you research your guest or start writing questions, ask yourself one thing: Why should someone listen to this conversation?
It's easy to book an interesting guest without having a clear idea of what you want to discuss. But an impressive résumé doesn't automatically make for an engaging episode.
Think about what your audience should take away from the interview. Are you trying to help listeners understand a complicated issue? Introduce them to a new perspective? Share an inspiring story? Offer practical advice they can apply to their own lives? Your answer should guide everything that follows.
For example, if you're interviewing a successful entrepreneur, you could spend an hour discussing their entire career. But if your podcast is designed to help new business owners, your audience might find more value in a focused conversation about the challenges of building a company from scratch.
A clear purpose helps you identify the most relevant questions and prevents the interview from becoming a collection of unrelated talking points. That doesn't mean every conversation needs to follow a rigid structure, but you should know what you're hoping to accomplish before you hit record.
2. Research Your Guest Beyond Their Biography
Your guest's biography is a starting point, but not a complete research strategy. A bio can tell you where someone works, what they've accomplished, and why they're qualified to speak about a subject. But it rarely tells you what makes their perspective unique. To find that, you'll need to dig a little deeper.
Depending on your guest, that might mean:
Listening to previous podcast appearances or interviews.
Reading articles, books, or research they've published.
Reviewing their professional website or recent projects.
Exploring their public talks, presentations, or social media.
Looking into recent developments related to their area of expertise.
As you research, pay attention to the things that make you curious. Maybe your guest mentioned an unexpected career change in another interview but never explained what motivated it. Perhaps they've taken a position that challenges conventional thinking in their industry. Or maybe their work raises questions that haven't been explored in other conversations.
Those details can lead to much more interesting interviews than simply asking someone to walk through their résumé. The goal of research isn't to learn everything about your guest. It's to discover what you can’t find that you want to know.
And there's another benefit: When guests realize you've taken the time to understand their work, they're often more comfortable moving beyond the answers they've given a hundred times before.
3. Write Questions That Invite Stories
One of the biggest differences between an ordinary interview and a memorable one is the quality of the questions. Consider these two approaches:
Question A: "Did you face challenges when starting your business?"
Question B: "Can you tell me about a moment when you weren't sure your business was going to succeed?"
Both questions address the same general subject, but the second invites the guest to share an experience rather than simply confirm that something happened. Stories give listeners something to connect with. They provide context, emotion, and specific details that make a conversation more engaging. When writing interview questions, look for opportunities to ask guests about experiences, decisions, and turning points.
Some useful question starters include:
"Can you walk me through what happened when..."
"What surprised you most about..."
"How did your perspective change after..."
"What do people often misunderstand about..."
"Can you share an example of..."
"What would you do differently if..."
These questions encourage guests to move beyond general statements and offer something more personal or specific. Of course, not every question needs to be open-ended. Sometimes a simple factual question is necessary to establish context. But if most of your questions can be answered with a single word, your interview may struggle to develop into a meaningful conversation.
4. Organize Your Questions Into a Conversation
Once you've brainstormed potential questions, it's time to think about how they fit together. A good interview should have a sense of direction, even if the listener never notices the structure.
Rather than arranging your questions randomly, consider organizing them into a few broad sections. For example, an interview with an author might follow this progression:
Introduction: Who is the guest, and what led them to this work?
Background: What experiences shaped their perspective?
Main discussion: What are the most important ideas or findings they want to share?
Application: What can listeners learn or take away from the conversation?
Reflection: What has changed in the guest's thinking, and what questions are they still exploring?
This creates a natural progression from establishing context to exploring the subject in greater depth. It also helps your guest settle into the conversation. Beginning with an extremely complicated or personal question can sometimes catch someone off guard. Starting with a little context gives both the guest and the audience an opportunity to get comfortable.
That said, your interview outline should be a roadmap, not a script. You don't have to ask every question in the order you wrote it. And you certainly don't have to ask every question just because it's on the page.
5. Send Your Guest Enough Information to Feel Prepared
Your preparation matters, but so does your guest's. Even experienced speakers can feel nervous about recording a podcast, especially if they're discussing a personal experience or an unfamiliar subject. Before the interview, give your guest a clear idea of what to expect.
That might include:
The general topic and purpose of the episode.
Who the podcast is intended for.
The approximate recording length.
Whether the conversation will be recorded remotely or in person.
Any technical instructions for joining the recording.
The major themes or questions you plan to cover.
Whether you send every question in advance depends on the nature of your show. For highly technical interviews, sharing questions ahead of time can help guests prepare accurate, thoughtful answers. For more conversational shows, sending a few broad discussion topics may be enough and help you get better answers than if you outline every point.
Either way, your goal is to help the guest feel confident without making the conversation sound rehearsed. If you're discussing sensitive personal experiences, it's also worth establishing expectations about the subjects they're comfortable addressing.
6. Make the First Few Minutes Count
The beginning of an interview sets the tone for everything that follows. Before recording, take a few minutes to introduce yourself, explain the format, and make sure your guest feels comfortable. You should also use this time to handle practical details, like confirming microphone placement, checking audio levels, or reminding your guest that it's okay to pause and restart an answer.
Once the interview begins, consider opening with a question that helps your guest ease into the conversation. This doesn't mean every episode needs to start with "Tell us about yourself." You can change it up in all kinds of different ways, like:
"What first sparked your interest in this work?"
"Was there a particular experience that changed the direction of your career?"
"What made you decide this was a problem worth solving?"
These questions help establish the guest's background while giving them an opportunity to tell a story. And because they're relatively approachable, they can help build momentum before you move into more complex subjects.
7. Listen for the Follow-Up Question
You can research your guest for hours, write an excellent outline, and still miss the best part of the interview if you're too focused on what comes next. One of the most valuable interviewing skills is learning to recognize when a guest says something worth exploring.
Imagine you're interviewing a business owner who casually mentions that their company nearly closed during its first year. Your next prepared question might be about marketing strategy. But the more interesting question is probably, "What happened?"
Great follow-up questions don't have to be complicated. Sometimes the simplest ones are the most effective:
"Can you tell me more about that?"
"What did that look like in practice?"
"Why do you think that happened?"
"How did you respond?"
"What happened next?"
These questions show your guest that you're paying attention, and they encourage the kind of detail that makes interviews memorable. They can also uncover information you wouldn't have known to ask about beforehand.
Preparation gives you somewhere to start. Listening helps you discover where the conversation should go.
8. Don't Be Afraid of Silence
Silence can feel uncomfortable when you're recording a podcast. As soon as a guest finishes speaking, you might feel pressure to fill the space with another question or comment. But a brief pause isn't necessarily a problem.
Sometimes guests need a moment to gather their thoughts. Other times, they may be deciding whether to elaborate on something they've just said. If you immediately jump in, you might interrupt an answer that wasn't quite finished. Give your guest room to think.
A few seconds of silence can be especially valuable after a thoughtful or emotional response. And remember, you're recording a podcast. If a pause feels too long, it can be tightened during editing. You don't have to fill every second with conversation to make an engaging episode.
9. Know When to Redirect the Conversation
Listening carefully doesn't mean allowing every tangent to continue indefinitely. Sometimes a guest will move away from the original subject, repeat a point, or spend too much time on details that aren't particularly relevant to your audience.
Part of your job as an interviewer is recognizing when it's time to guide the conversation back. You can do this without making the guest feel interrupted or dismissed.
For example:
"That's an interesting point, and I want to connect it back to something you mentioned earlier..."
"Before we move on, I'd love to get your perspective on..."
"You mentioned something earlier that I think our listeners would find especially helpful..."
These transitions acknowledge what the guest has said while helping the interview maintain its focus. Remember, you're not just having a conversation for your own benefit. You're creating something for an audience. That means balancing your guest's perspective with the information listeners need to understand and enjoy the episode.
10. Prepare for the Technical Side, Too
Even the most compelling conversation can be difficult to enjoy if the audio quality is poor. Before your interview, make sure the recording environment and equipment are ready. For remote interviews, encourage guests to use headphones and record in a quiet room with minimal background noise. A dedicated microphone is helpful, but even a simple setup can produce good results when used correctly.
For in-person recordings, check microphone placement, monitor audio levels, and listen for distracting sounds like air conditioning, traffic, or equipment noise. It's also a good idea to test your recording software and confirm that you have enough storage space before the interview begins. Whenever possible, record a backup.
Technical preparation may not be the most exciting part of podcasting, but it can save you from discovering after an otherwise excellent interview that something went wrong with the recording.
11. Think About the Listener During the Interview
When you're deeply familiar with a subject, it's easy to forget that your audience may not have the same background knowledge.
Your guest might use industry terminology, reference unfamiliar organizations, or assume listeners understand concepts that haven't been explained. As the host, you can help bridge that gap.
Don't be afraid to ask questions like:
"Can you explain what that means for someone who's unfamiliar with the term?"
"Why is that distinction important?"
"How would this affect someone in a real-world situation?"
These questions aren't for your benefit; they're for the people listening. You can also periodically summarize complicated points to make sure the conversation remains accessible.
12. End With Intention
A great interview deserves a thoughtful ending. Rather than abruptly wrapping up when you reach the final question on your list, consider how you want listeners to feel when the episode ends.
You might ask your guest to reflect on the most important lesson they've learned, offer advice to someone facing a similar challenge, or share what they hope people take away from the discussion. You can also give them an opportunity to mention something you haven't covered.
One of our favorite ways to close a conversation is with a simple question:
"Is there anything else you’d like to add or anything you think I should’ve asked but didn’t?"
That question usually leads to one of the most valuable answers in the entire interview.
Before ending the recording, thank your guest and explain what happens next, including any relevant information about the episode's publication or promotion. A good interview can also be the beginning of a lasting professional relationship.
The Best Interviews Are Prepared, Not Rehearsed
There's a reason some podcast interviews feel more like conversations between friends than formal question-and-answer sessions.
It's not necessarily because the host and guest know each other well. It's because the interviewer has created an environment where the conversation can unfold naturally. That takes preparation.
You need to understand your guest, know what your audience wants to learn, and develop thoughtful questions that give the discussion direction.
But you also need to be willing to abandon your outline when something more interesting comes along.
The art of a great podcast interview is knowing what to prepare, what to ask, and when to simply listen.
This article is part of Wavestream Wednesday, a series from Wavestream Media about building better podcasts with a strategy behind them. Check back next Wednesday for more.
