The interview with your occupational representative should last between 30 and 60 minutes. You are not required to audio record or transcribe your interview, but doing so may be beneficial later on as you attempt to integrate interview material with course concepts. However, you will need to take notes during the interview.

You should inform your respondent that this interview is being conducted as part of a research project for your sociology of work class at the University of Ottawa. Inform them that none of the information they provide will be used for purposes other than fulfilling the requirements for this class (in other words, no information will ever be made public by way of journal or newspaper article). Make sure to ask the respondent if he or she feels comfortable providing identifying information (such as name or organizational affiliation) or if he or she would prefer to keep personal information hidden behind pseudonyms.

You should start your interview by asking for background information. How long has the person been in the occupation? What kind of education do they have? What are their working conditions like? For example, if you’re interviewing a nurse, how big is the hospital? On a typical shift, how many patients does he/she see?

You should also make an effort to ask questions that are directly related to the topic you have chosen to investigate. For example, if you are interviewing a male nurse, you should inquire as to how many nurses there are in total at the hospital and how many of them are males. If you’re talking about work and family, make sure to ask how many hours a week he or she spends at home versus at work. This is self-evident, but make sure to be thorough.

Because of the variety of topics chosen by students for this class, the content of interview questionnaires will be quite varied. I just want to encourage you to be thorough when considering the types of questions to ask your respondent, especially those related to your topic.

When conducting in-depth interviews, it is always useful to ask people to elaborate on their answers or to provide you with a specific incident that illustrates the concepts in which you are interested.

For example, if you are building your analysis around emotional labor, you should ask your respondent to elaborate on a specific time when they felt the need to conceal or fake emotions. What exactly happened during that incident? How did they feel? To elicit this type of information, you could ask, “Can you give me an example of a specific incident when you felt like you had to conceal how worried or upset you were about a patient’s well-being?” How did you feel at the time? Were you able to stop thinking about the patient when you got home that day?