Chapter 17
Embracing the Informational Interview for an Insider Advantage
In This Chapter
Looking at innovative new ways to find people to give you the inside scoop
Walking through the proper etiquette for asking strangers to a meeting
Managing the interview so all the participants benefit
Following up with thanks
Being a master of social media and conducting expert research on an organization is one thing, but validating that research with real people who work at that organization is another. In fact, any research you do on a target company without validating it with primary sources is just based on assumptions.
That’s where the informational interview comes in. An informational interview is your chance to get a feeling for what working at a particular company or in a specific industry is like by having a brief conversation with someone who works at that company or in that field and can give you the inside scoop.
An informational interview, or info interview for short, is strictly for obtaining information, not for scoring a job. It can be the very thing that allows you to know deep in your bones that you’re a fit for an organization or industry. These types of interviews can also help when changing careers by providing valuable insight on whether the new field is right for you.
In this chapter, I explain how to find people to speak with from the company or industry you desire, how to arrange an info interview, and how to run the interview so (A) your contact feels excited to advocate for you and (B) you get the info you need to have a conversation with a hiring manager later on.
Tracking Down the People with the Information You Want
As you grow your social networks, you may find that many of your second- and third-degree connections can be useful to you. For example, your sister’s college roommate may know someone working at your dream company. With social media tools, you’ll know of the connection and can then figure out whether that person is able to give you more information about your industry or company of choice.
The following sections reveal how to track down these potential information goldmines using LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. They also highlight how you can find industry and company contacts simply by staying on top of related news.
Using LinkedIn to find info sources
After you grow your LinkedIn network to about 150 connections, which is roughly the tipping point for a powerful network, and complete your online profile (I show you how to do both in Chapter 9), LinkedIn can be an extremely powerful tool for finding people with whom you can conduct informational interviews. I’ve found two groups in particular to be useful for my clients: new and former employees of your target company and your alumni network.
Don’t try reaching out to new people until you’ve completed your profile. If you contact people and your profile doesn’t look amazing, they may decide not to get back to you. And try your best to grow your network to at least 150 contacts, or you may not have access to enough people.
New and former employees
Generally, many professionals, particularly new hires, enjoy talking about their positions and their industry. Let’s face it: New hires have accomplished something extraordinary. They demonstrated the qualities necessary to beat many others to the position they now occupy. They’re probably quite proud of their accomplishments, and they can share valuable lessons with you about getting into the industry or company.
Former employees tend to have something to say as well, although what they have to offer may be less enthusiastic than what a new hire has to offer. Former employees are likely to tell you about the skeletons in the closet, the hard questions to ask during an interview, and any insight into the future of the company.
Here’s how to find new hires and former employees in LinkedIn:
1. Visit the company profile page for your target company.
To conduct a company search, just start typing the company name in the search bar, and LinkedIn will suggest companies for you. Click the one you want.
2. Click on the Insights tab.
Insights give you a list of anyone in the company who has a new title as well as anyone you may know who has left the company. Does anyone on this list seem like they’re in a position to offer you advice? Perhaps they’re new to the department or business unit you’re going for. Or maybe they just look friendly.
Your school’s alumni network
Nothing is stronger than the connection you have with fellow alumni. Your school’s alumni counsel and career center have high hopes for the LinkedIn Group they started. Not only are schools encouraging alumni to join their alumni group, but also they’re promoting participation in events, discussions, and networking with other members. In fact, I’ve been specifically instructed to show students how to fully use their alumni LinkedIn Group in almost every webinar and training I do.
To access your school’s alumni network for info interviews, just follow these simple steps. (But first, make sure that you have fully filled out the Education section on your profile.)
1. Visit www.linkedin.com/alumni to access the powerful Alumni Search tool (see Figure 17-1).
2. Select the school you want to search and graduation years.
3. Narrow down your search by selecting the variable of the types of people you want to meet, like where they live and work and what they do (see Figure 17-1).
Figure 17-1: Using the LinkedIn Alumni Tool.
Try selecting different variable combinations, each time checking out the new people who show up in the list.
For example, I found four people who are skilled in speaking, studied business, live in San Francisco, and graduated from Brown during one of the four years I attended. That’s a lot in common!
Using Facebook to find info sources
There’s no better place to find people willing to talk to you about their careers than on Facebook. After all, your Facebook network is probably filled with your closest friends and family. In Facebook, you have access to friends of friends, which are called second degree connections. So the one thing you and a potential info source has in common is a close friend. You really can’t beat that when it comes to networking.
Using Facebook’s Graph Search you can find friends of friends who work at one of your various target companies. Enter search strings like, “Friends of Friends who work at Target.” (I explain more about Graph Search in Chapter 13.)
You can also take advantage of some of the third-party apps developed for Facebook like Branchout and Jobs with Friends (http://friends.careercloud.com). Jobs with Friends shows you which companies your friends work for possible referrals.
Using Twitter to find info sources
Finding info sources on Twitter isn’t that different from finding news about a company on Twitter. (I explain how to do the latter in Chapter 16.) After all, if someone is talking about your target company, chances are that person has a deep connection there as well.
Large companies tend to have multiple Twitter accounts, and many of their executives tweet. To find them, go to any Twitter directory, like Twellow (www.twellow.com), and type in the name of the company you're targeting. The results show people who've used the company's name in their profile.
Often, employees of a company don't mention their employer in their profile but may occasionally mention it in a tweet. To find mentions of your target company in real time, go to http://search.twitter.com and type the company's name in the search bar.
Social media managers (the people who run a company’s Twitter account) are often willing to direct you to the right person. Send a Direct Message to a company’s Twitter account and ask for help finding an info source. (Remember that you can use only 140 characters in your message.) You may say something like, “Hi, I’m looking to speak w/ someone in marketing abt an opening I saw. Just info interview. Can you put me in touch?”
Looking at the news to find info sources
Thanks to social media tools, the people mentioned in articles about your target industry or company are all accessible to you. Stay on top of the news relating to your targets by setting up RSS feeds, which pull news from multiple websites into a single one for your browsing convenience. (I show you how to manage RSS feeds in Chapter 16.)
If you find someone mentioned in a blog post, press release, or other news source (like a local business journal’s website) who you feel would be a great connection, don’t hesitate to reach out to them. They’re just people. They may be busy, but they still read e-mail and are likely to (A) be on LinkedIn and Twitter and (B) be flattered by the fact that you read about them in the news.
Having read their article, either written by them or written about them, you now have something to congratulate them on. Lead with telling them you read their article in any communication you send out.
I’ve had great luck getting in touch with industry leaders and authors by retweeting their articles and then asking them questions on Twitter. If you read an article or blog post you particularly like, jump on Twitter and see whether you can follow the writer or source’s tweets. Engaging with someone on Twitter is a great way to get that person’s attention. Later, when you e-mail that person through LinkedIn, he or she will recognize you.
Other effective networking apps
Certain networking apps offer unique ways to expand your network. But even just since the first edition of this book came out in 2011, several networking apps have come and gone. The two I describe in the following sections are still around, at least at the time of this writing.
Brave New Talent
Brave New Talent (www.bravenewtalent.com) is a discussion forum organized around industries and companies, where conversations are lead by passionate people, often industry experts. After signing up using LinkedIn or Facebook, the site suggests areas of discussion you may find interesting. Individuals post to these areas every days and other members comment on these posts. Generally, the people on this network are willing to advise you and may even be willing to talk with you offline. Just like with any social network, listen first and then engage.
Hachi
Hachi (www.gohachi.com) is the Google Maps for your connections graph! It helps you get successful introductions for business, social, and personal reasons by searching through your connections across Facebook and LinkedIn. Then it uses its secret-sauce software to actually tell you the best person to ask for an introduction from. And finally, the system facilitates that introduction.
Asking for a Meeting the Right Way
After you find people who you think can provide you with some insight into an industry, company, or opportunity, you’re ready to take the next step: contacting them to ask for an informational interview. However, reaching out to someone without first thinking about your messaging is a mistake.
Between LinkedIn and Twitter, LinkedIn is the better way to reach out to potential info interview contacts because you can be more detailed in your request, thanks to LinkedIn’s lengthier messaging format. If you use Twitter, you’re confined to 140 characters, which doesn’t help you make a compelling case about why the person should talk to you. So use Twitter to get a person’s attention, but use LinkedIn to request the call.
I’ve received frequent info interview requests through LinkedIn since I began using it in 2006. And I enjoy analyzing how people structure their messages to me and my clients. Over the years, I’ve compiled a list of attributes of a successful info interview request on LinkedIn. Keep the following pointers in mind the next time you reach out to someone to secure an informational interview:
Lead with something in common. Although what you have in common may be obvious, leading with it really works to contextualize the conversation. If you have nothing in common, then mention how you found the other person. Chances are you found that person on LinkedIn during your research.
Get to your point fast. Don’t beat around the bush. Tell the person exactly what your intentions are for the communication. In the context of an info interview, the purpose of the call or visit is so you can ask questions about a company or industry.
Reassure the person that you’re not asking for a favor. No one likes being put on the spot. If people suspect that you’re going to ask them for a job, they may anticipate having to turn you down. Saying no isn’t fun and most people try to avoid it. Be firm in your intention that this isn’t a job solicitation.
Talk about what makes you qualified. A lot of desperate people are looking for work. Most of them don’t qualify for the positions they apply to, and many people desperately ping others for favors out of a sense of entitlement. Show your contact that you’re not one of these people. You’re uniquely qualified based on your skills and background. You are, in short, very seriously pursuing your career.
End with a strong call to action with a time limit. I urge clients to put a fence around how long the conversation will last. Mention that you need only 10 to 15 minutes of their time. Make sure you end the conversation with a clear next step. Are you asking him for a phone number so you can call him? Are you asking him to pick a time next week? Are you asking him to coffee?
Show appreciation for their time. Professional appreciation can go a long way and help you look more assertive. It sounds something like this, “I’d really appreciate it if you would . . .” or “I understand that things may be busy for you, but I’d really appreciate just a few minutes to . . .”
Using these building blocks, I’ve constructed the perfect info interview communication. Feel free to use it as a template for your own search for information.
Dear [name of the person you’re contacting],
I found your profile through the [name the common LinkedIn Group or network] on LinkedIn. I have been working as a [name last position] at [name last company], and I am in the process of making a career transition.
It would be helpful for me to find out about your experiences as a [name role] for [target company]. I promise not to take more than 15 minutes of your time.
I am not expecting to discuss a particular job opening, but I would appreciate being able to talk with you on an informational basis.
What is the best way to reach you this week? I have Thursday at 9 a.m. and Friday at 2 p.m. available. If these times conflict with your schedule, I am happy to meet with you at your convenience. I thank you in advance.
Regards,
[your name]
If someone doesn’t get back to you within a week, you can try sending another request. Assume that this person is simply busy. After the second try, however, assume the answer is no, and stop pursuing this contact. The last thing you want to be is a pest.
Conducting an Informational Interview That’s a Win-Win for Everyone
Even though an informational interview is a lower-stakes conversation with non-decision makers, your info sources may be able to help you in ways you can’t anticipate, so you should be prepared to respect their time. Walking into an interview without first preparing is a big mistake. I help you get ready for an info interview in the next sections by illustrating the discussion framework you should use and the types of questions you should ask.
Think of an info interview as a regular, yet casual, job interview, but instead of looking down at your résumé or answering a lot of questions, you get to ask the questions. Aside from these differences, all other job interview rules apply: Be on time, dress appropriately, and be prepared with questions. If you’re conducting this info interview over the phone, be sure to sit in a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Either way, resist the temptation to ask for a job. Your sole goal is to obtain information and build your network.
Leading the discussion in your info interview
Ultimately, you want the informational interview to be a fun, relaxed experience for you and the person you’re talking to — which means you may not want to have a list of ten questions ready to fire off. Instead, you may want to shoot from the hip and just enjoy the conversational flow. Although that’s a great strategy, you still need to round all the bases and get the info you set out to get. In my experience, the best way to enjoy a fresh conversation with someone new and interesting (while still making sure I get what I need from the interaction) is to keep a discussion framework in my head.
If you’re searching for the next question to ask, or if you find yourself asking follow-up questions and directing the conversation, think about how to drape your questions to find out what’s working, what isn’t working, and who else you can talk to about the industry, company, and personal experience. I outline a few questions for each category in the following list:
What’s working well? I like to start info interviews on a positive note. Break the ice by asking your info source how he or she chose this career or job. Why is your info source happy with the current role? Is the industry in a state of growth or decay? Perhaps you discovered something exciting in your research that you want an opinion about. On a personal level, what parts of the job role does your info source enjoy most? Is the company growing? What does the company do particularly well? Are there job openings in certain areas that you should know about? What are skills, talents, and personal qualities that help people succeed in this work?
What isn’t working well? Here is where you can ask about the problems facing the industry and the company. On a personal level, you can ask what the person would improve about the job. If you researched the problems facing the company (as I explain how to do in Chapter 16), now’s your chance to validate your findings. Where were you off the mark? Did you nail it dead on? Are the issues you thought were important really important at this company?
Who else can I talk to? End every conversation with this question. You spent hours on LinkedIn finding a valuable source of information, someone who’s already agreed to talk to you. When this interview finishes, don’t go back to LinkedIn! You have, in front of you, someone with firsthand knowledge of the organization. Perhaps this person’s colleagues can also answer some questions. Finally, make sure to ask about the hiring manager. Is the person you found on LinkedIn really the right person to talk to? If not, who is? What are the hiring manager’s initiatives right now?
In-person meetings always turn out better than phone calls. If your contact insists on a phone call, keep it short and find a way to invite your info source to coffee. In-person meetings have a tendency to go longer, which allows you to develop chemistry and form a deeper relationship.
Knowing what questions to ask about a specific company
If you’re quite advanced in your job search, then you probably already have a masterful grasp of your industry. That means your primary focus is finding just which company you should work for.
In Job Hunting For Dummies, 2nd Edition (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), author Max Messmer presents five dimensions of a job and a company that you need to know about before making a decision. Although a lot has changed in the job-seeking world since that list was written in 1999, it can still apply to your job search. I lay out the list for you, with my own social media twists, in the following sections.
Lifestyle at work and away from work
With at-will employment, declining loyalties, and the average job lasting two years or less, lifestyle has become the most important deciding factor in finding new work. I use the term lifestyle to include the lifestyle both at work and outside of work because there isn’t much distinction between the two anymore. These days, most people agree that if you’re going to spend 9 to 14 hours of your waking day devoted to a job, you’d better enjoy it. Life doesn’t start at retirement. People want to enjoy who they work with. People want autonomy to make their own decisions about their time and how they do things on the job.
If you’re like me, then you want to know about the lifestyle of someone in your desired role at a company. If I have to turn in a tardy slip if I get stuck in traffic, then that’s not the place for me.
Be sure to ask the following questions to determine whether the lifestyle the company offers is what you want:
What’s it like to work there?
What’s life like outside the office?
How much autonomy do you have?
The work itself
Sometimes a job posting doesn’t give you much info about what you’ll actually be doing on a day-to-day basis. Marketing Coordinator may actually mean Copy Writer. Account Executive may actually mean Telephone Rep.
You want to understand what the daily tasks are. How much teamwork will you have and what are the dynamics of those teams? Will you travel? If so, how much? A really great question to ask your info source is, “What’s your typical day like?”
Available opportunities
Many recruiters agree that most job opportunities aren’t posted to job boards. And sometimes, it takes weeks to get a job posted on a company’s own website. Your best bet to find out about opportunities at your target company is to talk with people who work there — hence the beauty of the informational interview. The info interview is your chance to get behind-the-scenes information about where to focus your job search.
During your interview, find out what areas the company is growing in. Which departments are hiring? If a job opens up, is it pretty competitive? Ask whether employees receive a referral bonus for bringing in new talent. Many companies give monetary rewards to employees whose referrals stay in the job for at least three months. This means that your contacts at the company (should they like you) may have an incentive to push your résumé to the top of the pile.
Advancement
When I worked at Cisco, my managers consistently asked me, “Where do you want to take your career, and how can I help you get there?” They saw their role in my professional life as coach and facilitator. A good job is one that offers you the chance to grow and develop mastery in your skills.
Find out from your contact how that company supports advancement, mastery, and success, including professional development opportunities to take courses, training, or attend conferences. If you get bored with your job, will you be asked to leave? Or will the company find you a parallel role in another department? How will the company feel if you spend 20 percent of your time doing something other than your immediate job role?
Compensation
Naturally, compensation (including pay and any other benefits) is going to be of interest, but instead of asking the person you’re interviewing how much she makes a year, try a less personal question, such as “Compared to other companies, do you think the salary is higher or lower than average?” If the salary seems low, you may inquire about the typical job path. Find out how your contact got where she is and how long it took.
Make absolutely sure you ask about healthcare and other nonmonetary rewards for employment. When it comes time to negotiate an offer, you want information about other perks. This info gives you more leverage to ask for more than just a higher salary.
Asking for permission to stay in touch
Something I’ve noticed good networkers do, and something I’ve tried to do myself, is to ask for permission to continue the conversation later. By asking this, you are setting expectations that you may be in touch again. No one likes surprises. And if you think you’ll have more questions, or if you feel that this person could become a wonderful ally in your career, you do want to get in touch again. Just let her know you have this intention with, “Would it be alright if I got in touch with you again if I have more questions?”
Don’t ask someone, “Will you connect with me on LinkedIn?” Yes, you want to connect with them on LinkedIn. After all, doing so will open you up to many great second-degree connections. However, asking it like that puts someone on the spot. It would be hard for someone to say no without making you feel bad, so they may say yes just to avoid an uncomfortable spot. Instead ask, “Would it be alright if I sent you a LinkedIn connection request?” This way, they can say yes without committing to actually connecting. Your grace will be much appreciated!
Thanking Your Contact, Social Media Style
You don’t need to read a book about social media to know that you should always thank someone for his time after a meeting. Showing your appreciation via social media is a great way to add value back to your contact. Consider offering your info source a Twitter recommendation (assuming he has a Twitter account). After the meeting, tweet a message like this to your followers:
Just met with @infosource and was super impressed with his knowledge about the future of Agile Project Metrics. Thanks for the chat!
Because you used his @twitter username, he’ll see that you thanked him. And because you tweeted about him to your followers, you help him open up his network even more. This is a great way to return the favor of the person sharing his or her time with you.
You can also use LinkedIn to show your gratitude. First, check to see whether you’re connected to this person by finding him on LinkedIn through a people search. If you aren’t connected, you can write your thank-you note in the body of your LinkedIn connection request.
This approach ensures you a first-degree connection inside the organization you’re targeting. And you’ll be more likely to have a second-degree connection to a potential hiring manager.