8 Steps of Informational Interviewing

Hi friends!

Good morning and welcome to another installment of The Art of the Informational Interview. This week I’ll be doing some 1:1 career coaching to learn more about the challenges facing other career explorers. Wish me luck. In the meantime, if you have any questions, concerns, problems, stumbling blocks, please do let me know! Hugs!Emma P.S. Do you know anyone who’s interested in making moves in their career? Please do share The Art of the Informational Interview with them!

1. Identify your career hypothesis or goals 

If you’re in the early stages of informational interviewing, you should start with identifying your professional hypotheses. If you’ve already put some work into validating your hypothesis, you might be ready to create a more concrete goal for yourself. Maybe it’s something like “Get a job as a product manager at Google” or “Be selected for the Whitney Biennial!”

2. But don’t get too attached to your goal or hypothesis 

You wouldn’t be doing this if you knew exactly what you wanted and how to get it. You might think you have a clear goal but then find out your goal isn’t actually a good fit for you. Maybe you disprove your hypothesis and need to come with a new one. Be prepared to change courses as you go through the interviewing process.

3. Research people you’d like to talk to 

I recommend starting by telling your parents, aunts and uncles, older siblings or other adults in your life that you are looking for people to talk to about whatever topic (the Whitney Biennial or product management at Google!). If you don’t know anyone who knows anyone with relevant knowledge then you’ve got to use the Internet: Land of infinite resources and knowledge! I’m sorry to say it, but LinkedIn is your friend. If you like, you can try using my handy informational interview tracker to keep track of the people you’d like to talk with.

4. Reach out to the people you want to talk with 

The next step, of course, is reaching out to the people you’ve identified. This is where many people get nervous and start procrastinating. They think, “I don’t want to bother this very busy person,” or “who am I to take up this person’s time,” or “maybe I should wait until I am farther along in my career before I reach out to them.” Ignore these thoughts and just send the darn email.

5. Conduct your interviews 

Okay, so you’ve sent your emails. Some people have responded, others haven’t. For the people that have responded, you’ve set up time to get coffee or chat on Zoom. Now it’s time to conduct your actual interview. Ideally you’ve done a little research on the person you’re talking with you. You know the basic Google-able facts about them, and you’ve prepared a few questions you’d like to ask them. If you’ve done that, you should be golden. Don’t worry too much. Just be yourself. This is a person you are talking to, a fellow human being! Remember that. If you click, great! If you don’t, no worries. And if it’s a really crummy experience, you might want to check out this article on handling the emotional rollercoaster of informational interviewing.

6. Follow-up with the people you interviewed 

Regardless of whether or not you were inspired or depressed by your informational interview, follow up via email within 48 hours. If they offered to make an introduction, feel free to nudge them about that. Let them know that you’ll keep them posted on your progress. Thank them for taking the time to talk with you. If you need some inspiration, here are a few follow-up/thank you email examples.

7. Reflect on the results 

If you are a journaler, I highly recommend taking a few moments to jot down your impressions after each informational interview. You can also make a few notes in your informational interview tracker. This practice helps you stay grounded in reality, and connected to your true feelings. Don’t try and trick yourself. If it felt icky, you should not continue in that direction. If you were inspired and excited, thats a sign you are headed in the right direction.

8. Repeat 

And that’s it, that’s the whole process. Just do it over and over again until you get where you want to go. It’s fool proof. It’s a numbers game. You need to get a lot of no’s (no’s from you, no’s from other people) before you get to that one yes. In fact it’s going to be 10 no’s for every one yes. So I recommend moving through this process as quickly as your sanity allows. Of course you need time to process, reflect, live your life. But the quicker you get through these interviews, the quicker you will get where you’re going.