Taking Notes While Still Listening
Launch library · evergreen read
Even with a recorder quietly running throughout, written notes still serve a purpose a transcript alone can never fully replace, since they capture an interviewer's own real time reactions, the fresh questions an answer raises in the moment, and the details that felt significant enough to flag for a later follow up.
The real skill lies in note taking that does not compete directly with genuine listening, since brief keywords rather than full sentences let an interviewer stay properly present in the conversation while still preserving enough of a trail to reconstruct the moment accurately once the interview has properly finished for the day.
Reviewing these rough notes soon after an interview, while the memory of tone and surrounding context is still genuinely fresh, adds a further layer of interpretation that a bare, literal transcript alone would simply never be able to fully supply on its own, no matter how careful it is.