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Greg's Informational Interviewing Protocol
Step-by-step instructions from my boyfriend
One of the features of my relationship with my boyfriend Greg is that we help each other a lot with our careers. I taught Greg how to do an informational interview, but Greg was the first one to operationalize the process. Here is Greg's step-by-step process for requesting and conducting informational interviews.
General Process
Find Interesting people
Searching LinkedIn, Angel.co, Crunchbase for interesting people and interesting businesses
Add people/business to Info Interview tracking spreadsheet
Connect on LinkedIn + add message asking for their time
Schedule - be sure to offer specific days/times to make it easy on them, “are you free Tuesday or Wednesday morning?”
Prep
Specific questions for interviewee
Ask yourself, “how can i provide this person value?”
Hold interview
F/u email with value you provide them (and next steps, if any)
General Interview Questions
what exactly are you doing? (what are you working on this week, what is your focus this quarter)
how did you get here?
what is your daily routine?
what is the culture like? values?
how do you learn and incorporate it into your job?
when in your job are you by it?
what parts of it are a grind?
software tools/books/blog posts?
who else should I talk to if I wanted to learn more about this sort of job?
Wrap
Thanks so much for your time and insight
What is the best email to reach you on? I’ll follow up with [blog post, software recommendation, book] i mentioned
If there is any way I can be valuable to you, don’t hesitate to message me, happy to help
Follow-up email providing vale and saying thanks
Email providing value
Introduction
Book
Blog posts
etc...
Reply