The following has been edited for clarity and length. Listen to/watch the full interview on the Interviewist YouTube channel.

Sarah: How are you involved with interviewing these days?

Lucia: These days, I'm on the side of interviewing thought leaders about these very high-level topics about the future of the industry they’re in—which is cybersecurity and compliance—and their vision for the future. So, very high-level topics about what's coming in the next five to 10 years within certain industries.

How you would describe your interviewing style or approach?

The opposite of buttoned-up—buttoned down. I very much try to have a very authentic, real conversation with people. And I very much am honest about where we are meeting in the middle, because I'm talking to a lot of very technical people, very technical thought leaders. 

In my 12 years, I've worked with a lot of tech companies and tech thought leaders. At the end of the day, I'm a content marketer and I understand the tech world, but I'm not a tech practitioner. I'm not a developer, I'm not a security expert. So I like to just lay it out on the line and come to the table and say, “Hey, there are things I understand, and there are things in your world that I need you to bring me into.” I'm not trying to pretend I'm smarter than I really am.

How do you prepare for those more technical interviews?

It’s the same way that I would approach a job interview—doing the research about the person. You're never going to understand everything about the space, but just understanding their experience and what they have written in the past—to understand their slice of the space is how I like to approach it. Just to make some big ocean of a concept feel a little bit more palatable for you, as someone who's not an expert in whatever it is. Especially if they've published any content before, I like to know what they've said and how they've approached it so I have at least that in my back pocket.

Have you ever been in a situation where you just have no idea what the other person is talking about or saying? How do you handle those situations?

I have another philosophy when I'm interviewing of—you know when you go shopping and you try on something? And in the dressing room, you don't necessarily like it but you buy it. You're like, maybe it'll go with this, maybe at some point I'll wear it. But that never ends up happening. If you don't like it in the dressing room, you're not going to like it when you go home. 

That's exactly how I feel about interviews. I know people learn things in all different ways.

So with that in mind, I am constantly saying to people, “Let me repeat this back to you, so you can tell me if I'm understanding correctly.” That's a phrase that I go back to all the time. Then I try to make things in my own words to make sure that I understand. I've learned over time that that's how I personally absorb information and understand information.

I love that because it also shows the person you're interviewing that you're listening. 

Yeah. I was on an interview yesterday with an extremely technical person who told me, “I think seven years in the future, I don't think about the present.” And so it was a tough conversation to follow. And I did this hack a few times of, “Let me repeat this back to you and make sure I understand.” And there were very specific instances that he was able to say, “Almost, but not quite,” and correct certain elements of the way that I was understanding it. 

Do you have other strategies for trying to better understand a technical concept while live in an interview?

This came up on the same call. Analogies of, this is how it works in this world, can you explain something similar in a different industry? Something like that is a really good way to contextualize it. For example, we were talking about new methodologies for approaching security. And we were talking about how in the world of development when waterfall moved into agile development, it was the same kind of methodology shift.

Taking it outside of the context of what you're talking about, and finding a new industry to tack it onto is really useful.

There are so many executives who want to be thought leaders these days, but also don't want to say anything too spicy. So how do you approach thought leadership interviews to get good thought leadership?

The practical advice—I never like thought leadership interviews to go for too long. I don't like to schedule interviews for longer than 45 minutes.

I think too, you just have to keep in mind, you can't create a thought leader out of anybody. They have to be willing to have those spicy takes, willing to put them out there, and then be willing to do the work, to review content, to work with a content partner, to create things. You can't always fit a square peg in a round hole. 

What’s your most memorable interview?

Every interview that requires pulling teeth naturally gets just burned into my brain forever. I can't think of specific instances, but there have been times when I've had to end interviews early because it's just clear that the person is not willing to speak, and it's just not going to work out that day. Which I think is totally fine. You have to realize people are people, and sometimes they're just not going to have it. 

But a memorable experience I have is actually around preparing for an interview. I always send people that I'm interviewing questions at least 24 hours beforehand. I say, “This is not for you to do homework. I just want you to be prepared and understand the types of things that I'm going to ask about.” I don't always stick to the script, but just giving them a sense of what we're going to talk about. 

And I had a manager of mine look over my list of questions that I had carefully curated for this person. This was really early on in my career. She looked at it, and she looked at it, and she said to me, “Do you understand any of these questions?”

And I was like, no, to be honest, I don't. I was just trying to sound really smart and pretend that I understand this deep tech thing that I don't. And that really stuck with me, because that's where the philosophy of—if you don't like it in the dressing room, you're not going to like it when you go home. She said: This is not going to be useful to you if you're trying to meet the thought leader where they are, instead of meeting in the middle.

Do you have any interviewing inspirations, muses, role models? 

You kind of take inspiration from everywhere in your life. I used to do improv and so I based my whole life off of, “Yes, and…” And every interview I approached with a “yes, and…” mindset of how can I build off what this person is saying? 

Now I have two little kids, and I read a lot of parenting books. This whole concept of saying less to your kids to get them to open up and talk about their emotions and how they feel is really resonating with me. For example, I'm reading this parenting philosophy, where instead of saying to a kid, “Oh, you seem really upset,” and putting the emotion on them, you just say, “Tell me more. How did that make you feel?”

Little tweaks like that will naturally come into play with what I'm doing at work because it's what's happening outside of work. 

🎤 

Want more? Check out our full, uncut interview below.