Informational Interviews

Unsure if you even want to work for a specific company or industry. Save energy, stress, and money
by investing some of your time in the investigative process.

Throughout your interviewing history, no doubt you experienced the “why did I waste my time with
this” feeling. Without any doubt, the wasting of time and money can be avoided by conducting infor-
mational interviews; but then again, what are informational interviews and doesn’t it take way too
much time to conduct? True enough once again, but relative cost, stress, and time is at issue. Infor-
mational interviews offer benefits at a low cost and could be the most efficient way to retain your
sanity before heading into a dead-end career. For example, they:

Help you learn about various careers within the industry

Can be used to gauge company culture

Help develop life-long networks

Give you insight into the non-advertised job market

Give you insight for scheduled interviews

Allow you to practice your interviewing skills

Develop rapport and possible referral within the company or industry

Overall, informational interviews give you a leg up against other candidates AND can be used as an
indicator when evaluating career matches. For the record, informational requests are not to be used
as a mechanism to ask for a job or a formal interview. This is not the time nor place to become an
aggressive job seeker.