Expert Interview Method
Ask accomplished practitioners which skill will produce your target outcome
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 94%
The Expert Interview Method turns a vague outcome into a better-informed learning target. First state the result you want, such as a promotion or a different engineering role. Then find people who already have that job or have achieved the result. Present a concrete candidate project, such as improving public speaking, and ask whether it would help. Their answers reveal which skills matter in practice and may expose a mismatch between the subject you planned to study and the performance the outcome requires. The method does not promise a perfect choice: Young explicitly allows learning something and later discovering it was not exactly what was needed. Its value is reducing avoidable misdirection before a larger learning investment.
Origin
Scott H Young describes this as one of the techniques in Ultralearning for identifying the skill behind a desired career or life outcome.
Core principles
- 01Start with the outcome rather than a fashionable subject
- 02Use practitioners' experience to test your proposed learning target
- 03Treat an imperfect first choice as part of learning
How to run it
- 1
Name the outcome
Describe the job, promotion, or practical result you want rather than beginning with a subject to study.
Pro tip Make the outcome concrete enough that an experienced person can judge it.
- 2
Choose a candidate skill
Form a specific hypothesis about the capability that could move you toward that outcome.
Watch out Do not treat the first hypothesis as settled fact.
- 3
Interview practitioners
Talk to people who already have the job or result and ask what they think of the proposed project or skill.
Pro tip Ask about a concrete project rather than requesting generic career advice.
- 4
Refine and begin
Use the interviews to adjust the learning target, then start while accepting that experience may reveal another correction.
Watch out Do not use research as a reason to postpone all action.
In the wild
An engineer who wants a more senior role considers a public-speaking project. Instead of assuming it is the right lever, the engineer asks people who already hold the desired role whether stronger speaking would help. Their responses determine whether to keep, narrow, or replace the project before committing substantial practice time.
→ A learning target connected more directly to the desired career move.
Common mistakes
Choosing a subject before the outcome
A compelling subject may have little connection to the result the learner wants. Start by identifying the result and work backward.
Demanding certainty before starting
The method reduces uncertainty but cannot eliminate it. Learning that the first target was imperfect can itself inform the next project.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for people who know the career or life result they want but are unsure which capability to build.
Not ideal for
It is less useful when the learning goal is already intrinsically valuable and needs no external outcome.
From the transcript
“one of the ways I really like is what I call the expert interview method”
“you talk to some people that have the job you know that you want or that have already accomplished what you wanted”
From the episode
Ultralearning - Scott H Young - #092
Scott H Young