Planning the Opening Minute
Launch library · evergreen read
The first sixty seconds of an interview rarely contain the most important material, but they set the tone for everything that follows. A calm, clear opening, explaining the purpose of the conversation and roughly how long it will run, settles a subject before the substantive questions begin.
Interviewers who skip this step, moving straight into questions without any framing, sometimes find their subject slightly disoriented for the first several minutes, still working out the shape of what is being asked of them rather than fully present in the conversation. A subject left without that framing sometimes spends the first several answers still working out what is actually expected.
A planned opening need not be scripted word for word, but having a clear sense of the first few things to say removes one more source of uncertainty from a moment that already carries enough of its own. Having the first few sentences ready removes one small uncertainty from a moment that already carries plenty of its own.