The Career Portfolio Workbook

HOW TO CONDUCT AN INFORMATIONAL INTERVIEW

It’s important that you have a clear idea of how to proceed when you

conduct an informational interview. If you go about the interview in a

well-organized fashion, you will give yourself your best chance of get-

ting what you want from the interview. And you will come across as

being very professional.

Creating a good impression can pay dividends. There are many

reasons why you should strive to make as good an impression as you

can, just as you would if you were interviewing for a job. Here are just

a few:

1. You have asked someone for a favor. You would certainly like this
   person to remember that you were gracious and appreciative, as well
   as enthusiastic, bright, and articulate;


2. The person might be thinking of hiring someone in the near future;


3. Your interviewee might be told the next day that his or her compa-
   ny would like to hire someone;


4. A professional colleague of this person might ask if he or she can
   recommend any good candidates for an opening;


5. You might work with this person in another capacity, as a client, cus-
   tomer, or colleague, sometime in the future;


6. You might want this person to be someone you can turn to for future
   advice.

The Stages of a Successful Informational Interview

To get the information that you need and to create a good impression

in the process of doing so, it is helpful if you think of an informational

interview in terms of the following four stages:

Introductory stage

Need-to-know stage

Finding further leads stage

Obliging stage

Note that we have underlined the first letter of the word that describes

each stage of the interview and that together the letters create the

acronym I.N.F.O. If you can remember that you are seeking I.N.F.O. in

an informational interview, this acronym will help you keep focused on

what you want to accomplish during each stage of a well-conducted in-

formational interview.

The following are some things to think about as you pilot the

interview through each of the above stages, beginning with the intro-

ductory stage.

Chapter 4: Using Informational Interviews to Perfect Your Portfolio 53