Many of you will take advantage of shopping, sales, sleeping, friends and food over Winter Break and I’d like to encourage you to take advantage of one more thing: Informational Interviewing. Perhaps your parents or friends parents, or friends have a job in a industry or at a company you are interested and now is perfect time to take advantage of any connection to ask for advice; you never know what may learn or where it may lead!
Informational interviewing is essentially talking with people about their careers. It is a valuable career exploration technique which allows you to learn about career fields first hand. It can also be a good job search strategy because it allows you to gain insights into the hidden job market (jobs not normally advertised). In an informational interview you will be asking most of the questions. The process is not difficult since most people enjoy talking about their careers. Basically, this is your opportunity to get the “inside story” – the pros/cons, salary/wages, hiring practices, required preparation, etc. and even make a great contact!
Just like in an actual employment interview, your goal is to have the meeting turn into a true conversation, with a natural back-and-forth and an easy rapport. But you’ll also want to make sure you’ve taken the time before your meeting to determine why you wanted to meet with this particular person and prepare questions ahead of time to make sure you get the information you’re seeking. The following is a list of some sample questions you might want to ask
- What was your educational background? Undergraduate major?
- How important is graduate school in your field?
- What special preparation do you have that you regard as important for the job you are in now?
- What kind of experience is necessary to enter the field?
- How did you get started in the field?
- What’s a typical day like for you?
- What’s the most interesting part of your job, or the most interesting project you’ve worked on recently?
- What do you find most challenging about your work?
And, of course, always remember to close your meeting by saying thank you and asking if there is anybody else you should be talking to in order to learn more. And remember to send a thank you note within 24 hours of your meeting!
Here are some great resources for more question ideas and guidelines from some of our favorite external job resources:
- Informational Interviewing/Networking from Bucknell CDC
- Informational Interview Questions by Alison Doyle
- Informational Interviewing Tutorial by Quint Careers
- Sample Informational Interviewing Questions from CareerOneStop
Or for them ore visually inclined folks:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vBNnpNDyo4
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