How To: Informational Interviews
You have selected your dream company. Maybe they have a role open today, or maybe you are just hoping to get the inside track to learn about future roles. You’ve used your network to get a meeting with an influential employee at your dream company. Now what?
Consider this to be the preview of what it will be like to meet your future coworker in the break-room for the first time. You introduce yourselves. You talk about what you both do. You find things you have in common. Then you get back to your day. It all takes about 15 minutes.
It sounds easy enough, but in this setting it’s important to prepare to make the most of your short time together.
Research
Before your call, take a deep dive into the publicly available information about the company. What’s the culture like? What’s the size? The funding stage (tech companies)? Some good sources are the company hiring page on their website, LinkedIn company page, Glassdoor reviews, or Crunchbase. Informing your questions with this information will show you are serious.
“I see your website talks a lot about supporting diversity, which is important to me. I see your board is pretty diverse, but what has your personal experience been with inclusion and diversity as a woman in leadership there?”
Check out the LinkedIn profile for the person you’ll be chatting with and note connections, causes, schools or companies you have in common. This will give you ways to establish solidarity in the conversation.
“I see from your LinkedIn profile that you also support St. Judes. I’ve volunteered with their annual 5k fundraiser for years, have you been involved with that too?”
Prepare
I don’t recommend that you script the conversation, it should flow naturally. However, you should be ready to introduce yourself and explain why you are interested in working at that company. See the ‘Tell me about yourself’ article for more tips on this part.
You should also have 3–5 questions ready to go.
Examples:
“When you joined, what was the hardest part about acclimating to the company?”
“Working for a leader I believe in is important to me, what can you tell me about the leadership team” (or hiring manager if you know who that is)?
“I see you were promoted recently, congratulations! Does the company have programs to continue to develop your skills to progress your career once you join?”
Meet
If it’s a video call, check out this advice for the setup
Make sure you end the call with a call to action:
“I really enjoyed speaking with you and I’m even more excited about working at your company. Would you be willing to recommend me to this open job or make an introduction to the hiring team?”
Follow up
2-days later send a thank you note for their time. Remind them of your request if they haven’t already followed up.
Connect on LinkedIn.
If they put you through as an internal referral, keep them posted along the way so they can help advocate for you behind the scenes.
Pay it forward
Someday, you’ll get a request for an informational interview too. Make the 15 minutes to get to know that aspiring employee. They could turn out to be your new best friend at work, or you could change their life by opening a door to their dream job!
