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

You should inform your respondent that this interview is part of a research project for your sociology of work class at the University of Ottawa. Inform them that no information they provide will be used for purposes other than meeting the requirements of this class (in other words, no information will ever be made public by way of journal or newspaper article). 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 begin your interview by inquiring about the candidate’s background. How long has the individual been in the occupation? What is their background? How are their working conditions? How big is the hospital, for example, if you’re interviewing a nurse? On a typical shift, how many patients does he or she see?

You should also make sure 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 about the total number of nurses in the hospital and how many of them are males. When discussing work and family issues, make sure to inquire about how many hours a week he or she spends at home versus at work. This is self-evident, but be sure to be thorough.

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

When conducting in-depth interviews, it is always helpful 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 your analysis is based on emotional labor, you should ask your respondents to elaborate on a specific time when they felt the need to conceal or fake emotions. What happened during that incident, exactly? What were their emotions like? 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 much you were worried or upset about a patient’s well-being?” What did this make you feel at the time? Were you able to put the patient out of your mind when you went home that day?