Informational interview

Last updated

An Informational Interview (also known as an informational meeting, coffee chat, or more generically, networking) is a conversation in which a person seeks insights on a career path, an industry, a company and/or general career advice from someone with experience and knowledge in the areas of interest. Informational interviews are often casual and candid conversations where both parties are focused simply on acquiring and sharing knowledge. They can also be formal if the knowledge seeker is a job seeker and the knowledge provider is a potential employer whose goal is not only to provide information to the job seeker, but also to learn about the job seeker and judge their professional potential and corporate fit. [1]

Contents

Knowledge seekers use informational interviews to gather information on an industry and on specific companies where they might want to work, explore career paths, uncover job opportunities, and expand their professional network. Knowledge providers use informational interviews to share their knowledge and lend a helping hand, expand their professional network and meet potential employees and business partners.

Informational interviews differ from job interviews because the conversation is not about hiring and not about a specific job. The knowledge seeker asks general questions about an industry, company or career path, and the knowledge provider has an opportunity to learn about the knowledge seeker's character and qualifications outside of a formal job interview process. Thus, informational interviews help overcome a problem in recruiting/job-seeking processes, where each side may be hesitant to talk to the other because they are uncertain about whether they might be wasting their time with an unqualified candidate or unsuitable workplace. Informational interviews provide a "non-threatening forum" for discussion as the two sides learn about each other. [2]

The term was coined by Richard Nelson Bolles, author of the best-selling career handbook What Color Is Your Parachute? . [3]

Sources of informational interviews

Sources of informational interviews include a knowledge seeker's friends and family, school alumni, fellow members of a community, social, non-profit or religious organization, former co-workers, partners and clients, professional acquaintances, and even total strangers, including industry leaders. Career advisors, coaches, teachers and recruiters can help connect knowledge seekers to other sources. Professional and social networking platforms are often used by knowledge seekers to identify and reach out to knowledge providers.

Etiquette for Informational Interviews

When the job seeker initiates the interview, the professional being interviewed is doing a favor by providing information. [4] It is important to be mindful of guidelines of informational interview etiquette, in addition to etiquette for traditional interviews. As for any interview, the potential candidate should learn in advance about the industry, the company and the individual. The time allowed is often short (15-20 minutes). [5] [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mentorship</span> Guidance relationship

Mentorship is the patronage, influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the personal and professional growth of a mentee. Most traditional mentorships involve having senior employees mentor more junior employees, but mentors do not necessarily have to be more senior than the people they mentor. What matters is that mentors have experience that others can learn from.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Résumé</span> Document describing a persons skills

A résumé, sometimes spelled resume, is a document created and used by a person to present their background, skills, and accomplishments. Résumés can be used for a variety of reasons, but most often they are used to secure new employment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Recruitment</span> Process of attracting, selecting and appointing candidates to a job or other organization

Recruitment is the overall process of identifying, sourcing, screening, shortlisting, and interviewing candidates for jobs within an organization. Recruitment also is the process involved in choosing people for unpaid roles. Managers, human resource generalists, and recruitment specialists may be tasked with carrying out recruitment, but in some cases, public-sector employment, commercial recruitment agencies, or specialist search consultancies such as Executive search in the case of more senior roles, are used to undertake parts of the process. Internet-based recruitment is now widespread, including the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LinkedIn</span> Professional network website

LinkedIn is a business and employment-focused social media platform that works through websites and mobile apps. It was launched on May 5, 2003 by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly. Since December 2016, LinkedIn has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. The platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows jobseekers to post their CVs and employers to post jobs. From 2015, most of the company's revenue came from selling access to information about its members to recruiters and sales professionals. LinkedIn has more than 1 billion registered members from over 200 countries and territories.

Job hunting, job seeking, or job searching is the act of looking for employment, due to unemployment, underemployment, discontent with a current position, or a desire for a better position. The immediate goal of job seeking is usually to obtain a job interview with an employer which may lead to getting hired. The job hunter or seeker typically first looks for job vacancies or employment opportunities.

Cisco Certifications are the list of the Certifications offered by Cisco Systems. There are four to five levels of certification: Associate (CCNA/CCDA), Professional (CCNP/CCDP), Expert (CCIE/CCDE) and recently, Architect, as well as nine different paths for the specific technical field; Routing & Switching, Design, Industrial Network, Network Security, Service Provider, Service Provider Operations, Storage Networking, Voice, Datacenter and Wireless.
There are also a number of specialist technicians, sales, Business, data center certifications and CCAI certified instructors.

An employment website is a website that deals specifically with employment or careers. Many employment websites are designed to allow employers to post job requirements for a position to be filled and are commonly known as job boards. Other employment sites offer employer reviews, career and job-search advice, and describe different job descriptions or employers. Through a job website, a prospective employee can locate and fill out a job application or submit resumes over the Internet for the advertised position.

<i>What Color Is Your Parachute?</i> Book by Richard Nelson Bolles published in 1970

What Color Is Your Parachute? is a self-help book by Richard Nelson Bolles intended for job-seekers. It has been in print since 1970 and has been revised annually since 1975, sometimes substantially. Bolles initially self-published the book on December 1, 1970, and it has been commercially published since November 1972 by Ten Speed Press in Berkeley, California. As of September 28, 2010, the book is available in 22 languages and used in 26 countries around the world. Over ten million copies have been sold worldwide. It is one of the most highly regarded career advice books in print. In the 2014 edition of the book, Bolles writes about how to adapt one's job search to the Internet age.

Career portfolios help document education, work samples and skills. People use career portfolios to apply for jobs, apply to college or training programs. They are more in-depth than a resume, which is used to summarize the above in one or two pages. Career portfolios serve as proof of one's skills, abilities, and potential in the future. Career portfolios are becoming common in high schools, college, and workforce development.

Career assessments are tools that are designed to help individuals understand how a variety of personal attributes, impact their potential success and satisfaction with different career options and work environments. Career assessments have played a critical role in career development and the economy in the 20th century. Individuals or organizations often use assessment of some or all of these attributes, such as university career service centers, career counselors, outplacement companies, corporate human resources staff, executive coaches, vocational rehabilitation counselors, and guidance counselors to help individuals make more informed career decisions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Job fair</span>

A job fair, also commonly referred to as a job expo or career fair or career expo, is an event in which employers, recruiters, and schools give information to potential employees. Job seekers attend job fairs to speak face-to-face with potential employers, fill out résumés, and ask questions about the various positions available. In addition to in-person events, online job fairs give job seekers a virtual way to get in contact with possible employers.

In businesses, networking is the sharing of information or services between people, companies, or groups. It is also a way for individuals to grow their relationships for their job or companies. As a result, connections or a network can be built and useful for individuals in their professional or personal lives. Networking helps build meaningful relationships that are beneficial to all involved parties to exchange information and services. Gaining new significant business acquaintances can be obtained by networking meetings, social media, personal networking, and business networking.

A click path or clickstream is the sequence of hyperlinks one or more website visitors follows on a given site, presented in the order viewed. A visitor's click path may start within the website or at a separate third party website, often a search engine results page, and it continues as a sequence of successive webpages visited by the user. Click paths take call data and can match it to ad sources, keywords, and/or referring domains, in order to capture data.

40Plus, also known as 40 Plus, 40+, Forty Plus or FortyPlus, is a United States-based non-profit organization that helps professionals, managers and executives make career transitions and find employment. Historically, membership was limited to persons over 40, but some chapters have opened their ranks to experienced professionals of all ages. 40Plus chapters provide job search training programs, networking opportunities, and other resources to members. Members come from all sectors of the economy, including private businesses, non-profit organizations, educational institutions and government. Many people with technical and professional expertise do not receive outplacement counseling when they lose their jobs, and 40Plus chapters have helped to fill that gap for many individuals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Curriculum vitae</span> Summary of career

In English, a curriculum vitae is a short written summary of a person's career, qualifications, and education. This is the most common usage in British English. In North America, the term résumé is used, referring to a short career summary.

Employee retention is the ability of an organization to retain its employees and ensure sustainability. Employee retention can be represented by a simple statistic. Employee retention is also the strategies employers use to try to retain the employees in their workforce.

A talent community is a mechanism that employers use to keep active pipelines of talent for future recruitment. Talent pipelines consist of potential employees who are interested in working at a given employer, but are not ready to apply. This group is engaged with on a frequent basis so that when the potential employees are ready to seek a new job, they have a relationship with the company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BranchOut</span> Former Facebook application

BranchOut was a Facebook application designed for finding jobs, networking professionally, and recruiting employees. It was founded by Rick Marini in July 2010, and was, as of March 2012, the largest professional networking service on Facebook. The company sold its assets to HR Software Company 1-Page in November 2014 and the staff was picked up by Hearst.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura M. Labovich</span>

Laura M. Labovich is an author, national job search expert, speaker and chief executive officer of a boutique outplacement firm in Washington D.C. She is the co-author of 100 Conversations for Career Success(2012), and the author of the Pearson Workforce Education online course, the Ultimate job Search Course(2014).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social impact of profound hearing loss</span>

People with extreme hearing loss may communicate through sign languages. Sign languages convey meaning through manual communication and body language instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns. This involves the simultaneous combination of hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to express a speaker's thoughts. "Sign languages are based on the idea that vision is the most useful tool a deaf person has to communicate and receive information".

References

  1. ↑ Grace Chao. "How To Explore Careers And Find A Job By Talking To People" . Retrieved October 18, 2020.
  2. ↑ Dawn Rosenberg McKay. "The Informational Interview: Getting the Inside Scoop on an Occupation". About.com. Retrieved January 20, 2014.
  3. ↑ Richard Nelson Bolles (2013). What Color Is Your Parachute?: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers . New York: Crown Publishing. ISBN   9781607743644.
  4. ↑ Marci Alboher (January 29, 2008). "Mastering the Informational Interview". The New York Times. Retrieved January 6, 2014.
  5. ↑ Alison Doyle. "Informational Interviews: What is an Informational Interview and How it Can Help Your Career". About.com. Retrieved January 6, 2014.
  6. ↑ "Informational Interviewing Tutorial: A Key Networking Tool for Students, Job-Seekers, and Career-Changers". QuintCareers.com. Retrieved January 6, 2014.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.