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A few tips on how to approach informational interviews

by | Apr 12, 2014 | career, interview advice, Networking, professional advice, recruiting | 0 comments

The message below is from a college Freshman, who I met earlier this academic year when I gave a talk at his university. Back in December, he emailed me with questions about how to best position himself to pursue a summer internship and the email exchange below is an excerpt from our exchange with a focus on how to approach information interviews.

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JS wrote:

Marquis,

[…]

Yesterday, I went to the Undergraduate Career Services Office and asked about internships. The first thing they told me was that freshman shouldn’t be there, but because it was dead week she would give me a few minutes of time. Then she basically told me come back next week with a better formatted resume and find a position I want to apply for at one of those top firms and she will grill me like they would to make sure I’ve done my homework.

Afterwards, she wants to help me learn the “art” of an informational interview where I will start by asking someone about their career and leverage the conversation to try and obtain an internship. So in regards to trying to find out more and get into the industry, hopefully this will be an effective way for me to do so. Do you potentially have any tips on informational interviews or thoughts about using them as a means of obtaining the internship?

[…]

Hope all is well and you have a great Christmas. Thank you very much once again, I appreciate your thoughtfulness in helping me out with various different things.

Thanks,

JS

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My response:

Hi JS,

I’m glad that you were able to get some additional information to set you off on the right track for trying to find an internship. As a Freshman, it won’t be an easy thing to do, so you’ll have to be ready to grind hard and set your expectation set correctly.

The key with informational interviews is not too look at them as a way to get a job opportunity. What they are really for is to get information and nothing else. If a job opportunity comes as a follow-up to the discussion, that’s great, but you can’t go in there with that as your expectation. If you do, it will be immediately apparent to the person with whom you’re speaking and that person will likely shut you down immediately. This is a HUGE mistake that people have made with me when they’ve asked for informational interviews in the past. No bueno.

Here are some general, high-level tips that you might find helpful:

  • Do some research on the company and industry in which the person works before the discussion. You will only have a finite amount of time with the person and you shouldn’t waste it having him/her talk to you about things that you can easily find out on your own with a little research.

  • Have an agenda in mind to guide the discussion, but don’t be overbearing in trying to stick to it. I know that this may sound like a set of opposing advice, but bear with me because I’ll make it make sense to you. In some informational interviews, you might have the person start off by saying “So, what do you want to know?” or “How can I be helpful?”. If you don’t have an agenda in mind or a set of ideas of what you want to learn, you risk wasting a potentially great chance to learn about a company, an industry, or a career. At the same time, some people may come into the discussion with an idea of what they want to talk about, so you have to be flexible enough to let the person talk, even if they go down a path that is different from what you wanted to discuss. Never cut off someone when they’re on a roll because you’ll essentially kill any chance that you have for longer-term engagement with that person.

  • Don’t make the conversation about you…make it about the other person. The point of an informational interview is for you to gather information. That’s it. If you’re lucky enough for the other person to make room for you to give details about yourself, that’s cool, but don’t assume that you have an opening to do so. There is a high likelihood that you’ll only get one interaction with this person, so this is a chance for you to be a sponge and learn as much as you can about the interviewee’s company, career path, etc. I’ve had several instances where I’ll set up a 20-30 minute call with someone, only to have them spend 15 minutes at the beginning talking about him-/herself. Then, when I end up running out of time before being able to share much information, the person ask for me to book another 30 minute call at another time…which I never do. Remember that you may only have a single shot at an informational interview, so you have to make it count.

  • Make sure you follow up with a thank you note and do so quickly. The uncomfortable feeling after giving an informational interview is when I feel like the person really didn’t value my time. If I don’t receive any sort of follow-up email/card/note from the person, I start to wonder whether the person really appreciated the time that I was able to carve out. At that point, I consider the engagement with that person to be done.

Take care and happy holidays.

Marquis