Two Approaches to Informational Interviewing

Hi Friends,It’s been a minute. I’ve been focusing on R&R the last few weeks, and trying to downshift from my usual manic mode of productivity. Hence, fewer posts and e-mails. In the spirit of downshifting, or upshifting, or just thoughtfully shifting gears in general… I bring you this weeks post! Love,Emma

Share The Art of the Informational Interview with friends, family, mentees, mentors, colleagues, managers, and direct reports.

Here’s one way you can approach informational interviewing: you review the step-by-step process, you download the tracker doc, you start furiously researching, emailing and setting up calls. You know it’s a numbers game so you give yourself goals: you will interview 5 people a week! No 10! No 15! You’re a master lead generator! You’re optimizing your funnel! Your career is on a hockey stick trajectory!

I call this approach the rise and grind approach.

Here’s another approach. You have a small thought in the back of your mind, of something that might make you happy, something that might inspire you and make your life feel worthwhile and rewarding. You know it’s there. And, if you’re being honest, you know the next right move, too. You may not know you know, but you know. You know? You use your contemplative practice (journaling, walking, talking with friends) to pin down that small thought. You’re careful with it though, and you know it’s not a good idea to share your small thought with critics and skeptics. You identify and write down your next move: one e-mail, one-phone call, one-interview. You take that one step, and then you let the universe take its course.

I call this second approach the lily pad method because you are like a frog hopping from one lily pad to the next.

With the lily pad approach you go slow to go fast. You rely on your intuition. You let each lily pad inform your next jump. You take things one informational interview at a time. You go slow enough that you have time to digest what you are learning, to listen to your body, to practice discernment. You don’t delay. You don’t sit around Googling things and filling out job applications online. You simply take things one step at a time. The lily pad approach is based in trust. You have to trust yourself, trust other people and trust the universe (S/O to my creative coach Nancy Sun for sharing this trust triangle with me).

The lily pad approach can be faster and more effective than the rise and grind approach because you are less likely to burn out. Also, it can be more spiritually coherent, and more likely to lead to an outcome that is truly right for you.

That said, there is a time and place for rising and grinding. You may need to rise and grind if you are facing survival issues. If you are in desperate need of cash or health insurance you may not have a choice but to rise and grind. You also may want to rise and grind if you’re ambitious and excited to test yourself and find your max hustle. Typically, it’s easier for young people to rise and grind for the simple reason that their bodies are more resilient. One time, when I was 25, I stayed out dancing until 4 a.m., and got up at 9 a.m. the next day, took a train into Manhattan and lead a two hour meeting of pro bono consultants. There’s no way I could do that now.

It’s up to you to decide which approach is right for you right now. You should be familiar with both. If you never rise and grind, you will never know what your max effort looks like. And if you never master the lily pad approach you might get a stomach ulcer from all that hustling.

It’s also not perfectly binary. Day to day, week to week, you can choose your approach. You can calibrate how aggressive you want to be based on your energy level, your bandwidth and your sense of urgency.