terviews. But you will get your best information for targeting your port-
folio if you make the effort to do some informational interviews.
And here’s an added bonus. In this chapter you will learn how in-
formational interviews can be used for targeting your career. Do one,
and you will probably want to do some more!INFORMATIONAL INTERVIEWS: WHAT THEY ARE
AND WHY THEY ARE IMPORTANT
Informational interviews are interviews that are used for gathering in-
formation. In the context of managing your career, informational inter-
views are primarily intended to generate information about industries,
organizations, and jobs so that you can both make informed career
decisions and learn how to present yourself effectively in future job in-
terviews.
Whereas the primary reason for going on a jobinterview is to get
job offers, the primary purpose of conducting an informationalinter-
view is to learn more about careers and jobs in a particular field and to
learn what employers are looking for.
The more you can learn about what a particular field or job in-
volves and what potential employers are looking for, the easier it is to
select the documents to include in your targeted career portfolio. For
this reason, it’s a good idea to begin conducting informational inter-
views well ahead of the time you intend to actually start applying for
jobs. Doing so will give you more time to prepare yourself and collect
the documents you need to put together a strong portfolio. For example,
you might discover that doing volunteer work or engaging in further
training is necessary for enhancing your portfolio. If you’ve started
early enough in the process, you’ll have more time to attain these goals.
Unlike in a job interview, in an informational interview you will be
asking most of the questions, and, therefore, the person you are inter-
viewing should be doing most of the talking. Nevertheless, the person
with whom you are speaking is likely to ask you about yourself. And so,
as in a job interview, you will want to be prepared to share some key
highlights about your background and, more importantly, be prepared
to talk about your career goals.
It is decidedly bad form to appear to be angling for a job when your
announced purpose is to have an informational interview. Nevertheless,
the possibility always exists that the person you are speaking with may
have a particular job in mind that you could be a candidate for. What-
ever the circumstances, you can be sure that the person you are inter-
viewing will be assessing you, even as you ask the questions. Therefore,
you will want to make a good impression. Your desire to make a good
impression doesn’t necessarily mean that you are likely to show your
portfolio during an informational interview. The informational inter-
view is intended to give you some guidelines for developing and target-
ing a portfolio that you will use in the future. However, if your portfo-
lio is in reasonable shape, you may decide to show it during an
informational interview as a way of making a good impression and of
getting useful feedback.46 Part I: Building, Using, and Maintaining Your Career Portfolio