Previously we’ve covered what informational interviews are and why they’re important. We also covered how informational interviews can help you improve your job search, and how to prepare yourself before an informational interview. Ultimately, informational interviews help you uncover the hidden job market and find the best jobs out there!
Here we’ll break down the process of how to conduct a successful informational interview.
Requesting an informational interview
Once you’ve narrowed down the people you want to talk to, you’re ready to start networking.
But how do you reach out to someone you don’t know AND have them agree to spend 15-30 minutes talking to you – someone they don’t know?
There are two steps to go about this on LinkedIn:
- Send a personalized invitation to connect on LinkedIn. Personalized invitations are rarely ignored. When you put in the time and effort to investigate their profile and mention HOW you found them and WHY you want to connect with them, they are more likely to accept your request.
- Send out a message once they accept your connection request.
Things to consider while cold messaging someone:
- Let them know you have done your homework on them, and you know exactly WHY you want to talk to them
- Be brave to ask for help
- Demonstrate your inquisitiveness in their career path
- Be compassionate and professional
- Do NOT ask for big favours during your conversation (please look at my CV/resume, refer me for a job etc). Read here for more networking ground rules that help ensure success when building a professional network.
You could say something like:
“Hi <interviewee name>,
Thank you so much for accepting my connection request. On looking over your profile I saw that your career trajectory involved you moving from your biochemistry PhD to medical science liaison (MSL) position. I am a fifth-year biochemistry PhD candidate at ABC university finishing up my dissertation and graduating in Fall 20XX. I am currently exploring my options outside academia and one of the positions I am interested in is an MSL role. I would love to catch up with you and learn more about the skills and experience needed for this role. Would you be available for a quick Zoom call for 15-20 minutes sometime soon? Looking forward to talking to you. Thanks in advance for your time.”
Your name
**The bold sections indicate the points highlighted in bullets above**
Tips for a kickass informational interview:
- Be confident and professional while sending cold messages. If you make the message about them (how interesting their career trajectory/role is to you, how you think they are the expert, and you want to learn from them) they would feel flattered that you would like them to give back. Often this is enough for people to accommodate your request – because people like being asked about their expertise
- Do your research on the interviewee and be prepared with specific questions. If you intend on making a good long-lasting impression, get as specific as you can. Because everyone’s story is unique, and everyone has a different set of experiences even if they followed a common career trajectory. You won’t know the details until you ask!
- Make it about them. Tailor your questions to show your enthusiasm for their career path and their story. Give them time to answer your questions in detail. You are there to learn as much as possible about HOW and WHY they chose to be in that position. This will help you to make informed decisions about your own career
- Do not go over time. Be mindful of time and keep it to the 15-30 minute limit. It’s important to respect their time, they could be doing anything, but they showed up to help you! If you cannot cover all your questions for some reason, ask for a follow-up call or message them with other questions on LinkedIn after the interview
- Establish a meaningful relationship even after the interview. The biggest mistake you can make after an informational interview is forgetting to follow-up. They invested their valuable time on you, the least you can do is send a thank you note. Being considerate can open lots of doors in the future because people always remember good manners
Important areas to cover in an informational interview
Every informational interview is specific to the interviewer and the interviewee. But there are some general questions that are important to cover in an informational interview:
- Questions about their career path starting with their education and any previous roles: Learn about WHY specifically they chose this path
- Questions about the kind of skills are important for someone in their role: Learn about the skills you already have or need to build
- Questions about something they wish they knew before getting into the job/industry– Learn about what to be prepared for
- Questions about their day-to-day activities: Learn about on-the-job duties that might not be explicitly stated in the job-description for the position
- Questions about the company/team: Learn about the culture
- Ask for their advice: An expert opinion on what you should do to follow in their footsteps
- Ask about any other people in their network that would be willing to talk to you: Always ask this question, because it is one of the best ways to tap into their professional network and use it to your advantage
After the informational interview
- Always send a Thank you note
- Update your spreadsheet of contacts (comprising of their name, employer and job title). Record any important notes from the conversation there and the date you met. This will come in useful when you next connect with them. Then contact any connections they suggested to set up the next set of informational interviews
- Evaluate your interview style. Take a note of things that went well, and things you could have done better. That will help you in your next interview
- Keep in touch by informing them about your progress, maybe once in two or three months
- Keep rocking and progressing! Every interview will be different. It might take a couple of tries before you get the hang of these informational interviews. Some conversations maybe easier than others. The It can be challenging to just be yourself the first time you talk to someone you don’t really know, but authenticity creates the greatest connections.
I’ve always been a happy introvert who used to view “networking” as something I needed to be absolutely perfect at. But as I conducted more and more of these interviews, I understood what people look for ultimately is that human connection! Once you’re able to establish that, it’s an easy road ahead.
In this blog post, we have covered how to conduct a successful informational interview step-by-step. You can use the template above to cold email/message professional contacts on LinkedIn or use your own.
Best of luck with your informational interviews!
Author Bio:
Hello! I am Suhasini M Iyengar (Suha) Let me share a bit about myself and what makes me intriguing!
As a final-year PhD candidate wanting to transition out of academia, I had been conducting informational interviews almost every week! I was eager to learn the industry jargon and more importantly how to switch out of the academic mindset, I had been cold messaging a list of potential mentors who could teach me more about the industry and mainly about the roles and companies I was interested in. I interviewed hundreds of professionals and even got interviews with the companies they work for. The first thing they always seem to remember is who I am simply because they remembered my conversations! A lot of opportunities have opened since then and I couldn’t be more grateful that I had conducted those informational interviews when I did.
Fun Facts:
- I am a Computational Chemist with expertise in structure-based drug discovery and molecular modeling.
- I am from the city of Mumbai, the largest metropolitan city in the southwestern state of Maharashtra, India at the tip of the Arabian Sea.
- I obtained her B.Sc. (with a major in Chemistry) from the Vivekanand Education Society’s College of Arts, Science and Commerce (VESAC), Mumbai, and M.Sc. from the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), Mumbai (in Chemistry), where I discovered my love for Computational Chemistry while working on a thesis-based project on modeling heterocyclic sulfones as non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors under the supervision of Dr. Kaustubh Joshi.
- Traveling halfway across the world to Boston to obtain my Ph.D., I am is currently a final-year Ph.D. candidate working with Prof. Mary Jo Ondrechen at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Northeastern University, since 2018, working on structure-based drug discovery projects against neurological disorders like Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s while also contributing toward mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic by finding novel inhibitors for different COVID-19 protein targets.
- Apart from running molecular simulations, my passions include writing (scientific/non-scientific), reading, photography, hiking, traveling, and journaling.
