People think interviewing is about the questions. It isn't. Anybody can write good questions. The whole game is what you do while the other person is answering.
Most of us don't listen. We wait. Somebody is talking and we're already loading up the next thing we want to say, nodding along, hearing maybe half of it. I did that for years. Then I figured out that the moment I stop planning my next line is the moment the real conversation actually starts.
Listening is a discipline. It's work. You have to shut off the part of your brain that wants to sound smart and turn on the part that actually cares what this person went through. You have to sit in the quiet after somebody says something heavy and not rush to fill it, because the quiet is where the truth usually shows up. The best thing I've ever said in an interview was nothing at all. I held the silence, and the person across from me went somewhere they weren't planning to go.
You can't fake it. People feel the difference between being heard and being handled. When somebody knows you're really listening, they'll hand you things they've never said out loud. That's a responsibility, not a trick.
I learned this the hard way, in rooms where the cost of not listening was a lot higher than a bad episode. When you've had to read people for real, you carry that into every conversation after it.
So the secret to being a good interviewer is embarrassingly simple. Care more about the answer than your next question. Be the most patient person in the room. Let people finish. Let the silence do its job.
The best interviewers aren't the best talkers. They're the ones who make you feel like the only person in the world for an hour.
Rush