The Benefits of Active Listening

The best interviews are never the easiest ones to get. They involve an exchange of ideas, opinions, and emotions. This can be challenging for some professionals because they’re afraid to offend their interviewee. Others don’t know how to react when their interviewee doesn’t want to share their ideas or doesn’t know how they feel. Yet still others find it uncomfortable being unable to express their opinion in a constructive way.


The first thing to realize is that you don’t need to say anything unless you truly feel like it. There’s no point in talking over someone else if you don’t care about their opinion, so make sure that you really want to speak before speaking.

When this happens, you can use active listening to ensure that you hear what the other person has to say.

Active listening is much different from passive listening because the latter allows the speaker to talk as they please. This means that you let them go on without interrupting. While active listening involves actively listening to the other person’s ideas and opinions. It is important to remain quiet while they speak. You can only actively listen when you’re actually listening. You should also actively listen to the things they say. This means that you are attentive to every word they speak and do not miss a single detail.

Benefits of Active Listening

1. You learn a lot more

With active listening, you will likely learn a lot about the speaker. As mentioned, this method encourages the speaker to express his or her thoughts. Since they feel safe sharing, they often feel comfortable sharing everything. If you listen and give them your undivided attention, you can often gain a clearer understanding of their opinions and ideas.

1. You learn what the other person is feeling

In a conversation, we often know exactly how we feel. However, most of the time, we don’t actually know what others feel. With active listening, we can take a guess at how our colleagues are feeling by observing their body language. This helps us understand if there are any disagreements or feelings of unease or discomfort.

1. You establish trust

After an interaction, the most common reason we dislike people is because they seem disinterested or hostile. With active listening, you avoid this situation by establishing trust and confidence in another person. When you actively listen, you convey that you want to be there and that you respect their opinion. This puts the other person at ease and gives you a chance to find out how they feel.

1. You reduce nervousness

People are often nervous when it comes to asking someone a question. For them, speaking to another person is a completely new experience. Most of the time, this is caused by nervousness and fear of rejection. By actively listening, you make it easier for the other person to ask their question. You show that you are confident in your abilities and that you are a safe person to approach.