Informational Interviewing - the Benefits

Informational interviewing is just what it sounds like – interviewing others to gain information.

The most important rule of informational interviewing is that since you will be asking for time to speak to someone to gain information, that is all you can ask for. Never, never, never ask for a job! It they offer you one, great, but never ask.

The other thing never to do, is never leave a résumé unless asked to do so. Instead leave your business/ networking card, with your name, contact information and brief information about yourself on it.

So what is it all about, how and why does it work?

You ask someone who is in the position that you would like to have yourself, if they have time to speak with you. Tell them you are looking around for opportunities in this field and would very much appreciate if they could spare just about 10 -15 minutes to speak with you.

I say again, this is the person in the position you would like to be in, or at the most, their direct supervisor. This is not human resources, or the person who could hire you.

Try to get an in person meeting, rather than just talk on the phone. After all, who do you remember better, someone you have sat opposite and chatted to or a disembodied voice on the end of the phone?

Ask them about their work.
Ask about working conditions.
Ask what they like best and what they don’t like.
Ask if they have any suggestions, or know of any possibilities of work in this area.
If you don’t already know how much the job pays, you can ask what is an acceptable range of income.
Ask if there is anything else is would be useful for you to know.

And last, but by no means least, always, always ask if they can give you the names and phone numbers of two other people you can talk to about this.

Then when you phone these two people up you can say you got their name from ______ and doors will swing open much more quickly for you. You are not saying you have a reference from the first person, just that they gave you the name, which is true. You can if you like ask the first person’s permission to say you got their name from them, but it is pretty well understood that if someone passes on a name and phone number to you that they are fine with you saying they gave it to you.

After each informational interview, send a thank you note.

What is the point in all of this?

Firstly you are finding out if anyone knows of any work out there. You are not asking to be hired, because the people to whom you are speaking are most likely not in a position to hire you anyway.

However if you make a good impression, they will most certainly tell you of any job openings they know of, and so will the people they refer you to, and the people these people refer you to, etc. etc.

And secondly, once you have done all your informational interviews, and know where the job opportunities are likeliest to be, you can go back to these companies, to the hiring manager this time, and say you have been speaking to _____________ in their _____________ department, and the chances are the hiring manager will be more open to your job application because you have a connection in the company, however slight.

Of course, be prepared for the hiring manager to go to the person you name and ask about you, so don’t make it sound more than it is. Just tell the hiring manager that you were doing informational interviews in the industry to find out where the jobs were, and you spoke to _______________, liked what you heard about this company, and would be very interested in any upcoming job openings.

This time you can leave your résumé.

Through this process you can find out about jobs in your industry and even if there is nothing right now, you can get known by both staff and hiring managers, so that when a job does appear, they will think of and hopefully contact you.

Need more help...