Why the best interviews feel like conversations

I’ve been recruiting for twenty years, and recently I read Jefferson Fisher’s The Next Conversation, which made me reflect on something I’d sensed for a few years: the best interviews rarely feel like interviews at all - they feel like conversations. For much of my early career, I believed that preparation, structure, and asking the right questions were the keys to a good interview. Any good recruiter - just like any trial lawyer, such as Fisher — knows how important it is to gather facts, cover key points, and understand someone’s experience in a coherent way. Structure matters. Efficiency matters. Without it, important details can easily be missed.

But instinctively, I often found myself allowing interviews to move beyond strict structure. Conversations would drift and become more natural. Candidates would relax and begin to reflect rather than perform. They would move away from polished, rehearsed answers and start to speak more openly about what they were really thinking. For a long time, I wasn’t sure whether this was the “right” way to do it. Part of me felt I should be more structured, more in control, more efficient. Structure felt professional; conversations felt unpredictable.

Fisher writes about how the quality of a conversation depends largely on whether the other person feels calm, respected, and free from judgement. When people feel evaluated, they protect themselves. They give careful, edited versions of the truth. But when they feel at ease, they begin to speak openly and honestly.

A key part of this, Fisher explains, is connection. True connection requires two things: internal understanding - actually grasping what the other person is feeling or meaning - and external acknowledgment - letting the other person know you understand them. In interviews, this can be as simple as reflecting back what a candidate has said or summarising their points. These small gestures signal that you’re truly listening, helping candidates relax, think more clearly, and speak more honestly. When both elements are present, the conversation shifts from a performance to genuine insight. Connection doesn’t replace preparation or structure, but it makes all the information you gather far more meaningful.

One question I’ve found consistently revealing in interviews is: “What might make you consider leaving your current role?” I don’t ask it to persuade anyone to move, but simply to understand them better.

Often, I follow it with a gentle prompt: “Can you tell me a bit more about why that matters to you?” This simple approach often creates a moment of genuine reflection. Candidates pause, sometimes thinking through ideas they haven’t fully articulated before. When they answer, they reveal what really drives them - whether it’s the desire for more autonomy, the need to feel challenged again, or the sense that they’ve reached a natural turning point in their career. Rarely is it just about salary or title; it’s usually something more human - growth, meaning, energy, or alignment.

Fisher writes about how the person who creates calm in a conversation creates clarity. When the conversation feels calm and unhurried, candidates think more clearly. They speak more honestly. And importantly, they begin to trust you. That trust changes everything. It allows you to represent them properly, and it allows you to guide them towards opportunities that genuinely fit, rather than simply look attractive on paper.

Reading his book made me realise that recruitment, at its best, isn’t about persuading or assessing. It’s about understanding. It’s about creating the conditions where another person can think out loud and arrive at their own clarity. When that happens, the decisions that follow are usually much better - for the candidate, for the client, and for the long term.

After all these years, I’ve come to see that the most valuable skill in recruitment isn’t asking better questions. It’s creating better conversations.