How to Have an Informational Interview - My SECRET to Networking & Job Seeking!

Hey, this is self made Millennial. I'm Madeline Mann. Today I have the five steps for you of how to have a killer informational interview. In this video, I'm going to take you from the very start of how to find these people to talk to, all the steps along the way, all the way till the end of the interview to make sure that you make the most out of your informational interviews. So what is an informational interview? It is a time to talk to someone who has a unique perspective in their career, an industry, a company, and really understand their personal experience to better inform the decisions you make in your career. I truly believe that informational interviews are the secret to making sure that you have a fulfilling career. That's because there's not enough time in a day for us to sample every career and see what is the right fit for us. So I'm so glad that you are taking the step to watch this video and make sure you're doing informational interviews. Why have an informational interview? Speaking. Speaking to someone directly about their experience makes you able to put yourself in that position and think, would I be happy there? The second reason to have an informational interview is because it's a great way to network and meet people who are passionate about similar things to you and really create these meaningful relationships. Okay, so let's jump into step number one. Find someone to interview. Don't let this part intimidate you. There are tons of people out there that are happy to share their experiences. The quickest way to find someone to talk to is to hop on LinkedIn. You can search in the search bar for the job title, something that they studied in college, an industry. See if anyone who you're connected with has an interesting path that you'd like to interview them on. It's also okay to reach out to people who you don't actually know. I get people reaching out to me all the time who are interested in HR and recruiting. I've never met them before and they send me a message and we hop on the phone and I talk to them and. And I'm really happy to do it. The second way instead of sending messages to randos is to every time you're talking to a friend or family member, talk about your career interests and maybe they know someone who you can talk to. You never know who can make an intro in your network. Step number two is the initial email. So you found the people you want to contact. How do you contact them? Just introduce yourself, say your current position, be that student or role you're in. Tell them what you're interested in talking about with them and make sure that they know that the intention of the conversation to have is that you just want to learn from them. So keep it short, clear, specific, and don't include your resume on this initial email. So here's some examples of messages I've gotten hi Madeline, I'm doing some research on roles in people operations as I'm currently completing my bachelor's degree in management and looking to make a career change. May I ask you a couple of quick questions about your work and what you enjoy most? So I didn't know this person when she sent me this message. I really like this one. This is a message that was sent to me on LinkedIn and it's quick, it gives me enough context. I feel like I can help because I know the kind of questions she'll be asking. So I was more than happy to hop on the phone with her. Here's another message that I got from someone who saw a presentation I did hi Madeline, I'm Akayo at ucsd. I was in that meeting when you did your presentation of grad schools. I was wondering if we could maybe chat sometime because I have a few questions about grad school. I have a different major than you, but I'm wondering how to get my foot in the door for admissions committees and increase my chances of getting considered for a program. I like this one. She told me how she knew me and she said exactly the kind of information that she was looking for. And while there was good description and it was also a pretty quick message, I will do a video on cold emailing, so look out for that. There's so much more to say on this topic, but the last thing I'll say is just don't overthink it. So step three Preparation. They've agreed to do the interview with you. Now you've got to prep yourself to make sure that you feel ready for it. An informational interview is a safe environment to ask questions, but just make sure you don't feel like it's too safe, where you're too relaxed, where you haven't really prepped and done your research ahead of time. Look up things about the company and that person. Understand their career trajectory. Look up the company they work for. Understand what they do. The size of the company. When you understand things about them, their company, their industry gives you a lot of credibility and you will impress them. Prepare your questions ahead of time. Really think about what you want to get out of the conversation. All of this Preparation is to make sure that you are leading the conversation. It's really awkward if you're in an informational interview and the person who has asked you to do the interview is, is not leading the conversation. It gets really weird and it feels like it's kind of wasted time. So that leads us into the fourth step, the conversation. So I'm going to give you an outline of how a lot of my informational interviews go. And depending on what you're trying to get out of the conversation, you may want to adjust this. First thing to do is tell them about yourself. Spend about three minutes talking about your interests, where your career has gone, and really what you're hoping to accomplish. Make sure you're being concise. This interview is about getting information about them, so definitely give them that context, but keep it to about three minutes. So what should you ask in the interview? One way to approach informational interviews is to have the following three objectives. First is to understand their role in career. The second is to understand the path they took to get to where they are today. The third is to ask them their advice about how you can build your skills and level up and in that career. So let's start with understanding their role in career. You'll want to ask about their daily life. What does their job consist of? Really get into the nitty gritty. So if they say they do administrative work, really understand what is administrative work. What are the tasks that you do in a given day? This will help you picture yourself in the role then you want to move into. Why are they passionate about their job? What's their favorite part? That's really important for you to understand the advantages of doing the job they're doing. Next, you want to ask them about the toughest or their least favorite part of the job. Even people who are very happy with their role, they still have unsavory aspects of it. So make sure to uncover those less glamorous things to really make sure that you understand the full scope of the role. One question you can ask is, what's something you didn't know before coming into this industry that you wish someone would have told you? Another way to ask this is on a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with your current role? Then if they say anything that's lower than a 10, you ask them, so what would make it a 10? This opens them up to be candid about areas of improvement. I do realize how nerdy it sounds to ask a rating question in an informational interview. Nerd alert. So that's up to you if that's your personality to do it. So now moving on to understanding their path of how they got to where they are today. Make sure you ask them step by step, how did you get to where you are today? Where did you start? How did you end up here? Make sure you get all the details, all the bumps in a road to really understand their trajectory and put it into a realistic perspective for yourself. If you're asking about a specific company, you could ask them what's the path to rising through the ranks? And also ask how much time is expected to take at each stage. That part is really important. Make sure you really have a good idea of how long each step in their career took to get to the next level. Another question to ask each is if you were going to go back in time to when you first entered the working world, what would you do differently? Another important question to ask about their trajectory is how much money should you be expecting to make at each stage in your career? I know this is kind of a personal question, but you can frame it as less personal by saying how much should someone in this career path expect to make at each stage? Talking about money is important so that you really know the full picture of what it's going to be like going into this career. Do be sensitive about this though. Frame it in the right way so that you don't put people off. And then finally, what advice do they have for you personally? You could ask them based on what you know about me, what would make me more attractive to a hiring manager to get a role in this career? What kind of skills should I be building to make myself prepared to enter this career? What are some books I should read? What are some conferences I should attend? Who are some people I should talk to? What do you notice about me that would be alluring to a hiring manager or repel them? If there's anything specific about your background that you want advice on, now's the time to ask it. And you always want to finish off by asking them if there's anyone who they would recommend that you talk to next. This will give you your next informational interview and that will be a nice warm lead that they'll introduce you to. So throughout this entire conversation, make sure you're asking killer follow up questions. Don't just rely on your script of questions. Step 5 After the interview so you've just finished up having this amazing informational interview and you may feel guilty. You may think that you are much more junior than them and that you have nothing to give. Know that you have something amazing to give to them and that is pure, genuine gratitude. People really enjoy helping and you're robbing them of that pleasure if you don't follow up afterwards. When you with a note or an email saying how valuable that conversation was and thanking them so much for their time to really build a meaningful relationship. Don't stop at that follow up thank you email. Keep following up. Keep updating them on your career every six months or year or so. They are now invested in you. You got to keep this going forever. Sorry. This is now for life. So those are the five steps. They have been so crucial to me in making sure I'm making the best career decisions Personal Anecdote for Me in my junior year of college, I didn't know what I was going to do with my career. I was getting a degree in psychology, so I went on LinkedIn and I looked up everyone in my network who had a psychology degree. I went on a bunch of informational interviews across a ton of different career paths. I reached out to someone who I'd met in college but didn't know too well. Her name is Liz. She had gotten her Master's in Applied psychology and had this really cool job in people operations at a tech company. We got dinner. I was completely inspired by her career path and her job and everything that entailed and it really connected with me and seemed like something I really want to pursue. From there I followed her path. She did a master's program. I did the same one. I kept her updated throughout the whole process and she became quite the mentor to me and we got really close. Two years after that initial dinner that we had together, she got me an internship at the company she worked for and I was so grateful. I really don't think I could have gotten where I am today without her guidance. It does show that it's really important to take that first step to just reach out even if you don't know someone very well. Not all of us will meet someone as amazing and pivotal as Liz was to me, but there's tons of people out there who are willing to help. Do not let the silence or rejections get in the way of you reaching out to people. Work towards finding those people who really help and truly nurture those relationships. Build them up. So those are all my tips for today. Go out there and do lots of informational interviews and please leave in the comments your personal stories and your personal tips about informational interviews. Do not forget to subscribe. Thanks for watching.