- Hey! This is Self Made Millennial. I'm Madeline Mann. Today, I have the five steps for you of how to have a killer
informational interview. In this video, I'm gonna
take you from the very start of how to find these people to talk to. All the steps along the way, all the way till the end of the interview to make sure that you make the most out of your informational interview. So what is an informational interview? It is a time to talk to someone who has a unique
perspective in their career, in industry, a company, and really understand
their personal experience to better inform the decisions
you make in your career. I truly believe that
informational interviews are the secret to making sure that you have a fulfilling career. That's because there's
not enough time in a day for us to sample every career and see what is the right fit for us so I'm so glad that you are taking the step to watch this video and make sure you're doing
informational interviews. Why have an informational interview? Speaking to someone directly
about their experience makes you able to put
yourself in that position and think, would I be happy there. The second reason to have
informational interview is because it's a great way
to network and meet people who are passionate about
similar things to you and really create these
meaningful relationships. Okay, so let's jump in to step number one. Find someone to interview. Don't let this part intimidate you. There are tons of people out there that are happy to share their experiences. The quickest way to
find someone to talk to is to hop on LinkedIn. You can search in the search
bar for the job title, something that they studied
in college, in industry. See if anyone who you're connected with has an interesting path that you'd like to interview them on. It's also okay to reach out to people who you don't actually know. I get people reaching
out to me all the time who are interested in HR and recruiting. I've never met them before
and they send me a message and we hop on the phone and I talk to them and I'm really happy to do it. The second way, instead of
sending messages to randos, is to every time you're talking to a friend or a family member, talk about your career interests and maybe they know someone
who you can talk to. You never know who can make
an intro in your network. Step number two is the initial email. So you found people you wanna contact, how do you contact them? Just introduce yourself,
say your current position, be that student or role you're in, tell them what you're interested
in talking about with them and make sure that they
know that the intention of the conversation to have is that you just want to learn from them. So keep it short, clear, specific, and don't include your
resume on this initial email. So here's some examples
of messages I've gotten. Hi Madeline! I'm doing some research on
roles in people operations as I'm currently completing my bachelor's degree in management and looking to make a career change. May I ask you a couple of quick questions about your work and what you enjoy most? So I didn't know this person
when she sent me this message. I really like this one. This is a message that
was sent to me on LinkedIn and it's quick, it
gives me enough context, I feel like I can help because I know the kind of questions she'll be asking, so I was more than happy to
hop on the phone with her. Here's another message
that I got from someone who saw a presentation I did. Hi, Madeline! I'm a chio at UCSD. I was in that meeting when you did your
presentation of grad schools. I was wondering if we
could maybe chat sometimes because I have a few
questions about grad school. I have a different major
than you but I'm wondering how to get my foot in the
door for admissions committees and increase my chances of
getting considered for a program. I like this one. She told me how she knew me, and she said exactly
the kind of information that she was looking for and while there is good description, it was also a pretty quick message. I will do a video on cold
emailing so look out for that. There's so much more to say on this topic. But the last thing I'll say
is just don't overthink it. So step three, preparation. They've agreed to do
the interview with you, now you've gotta prep
yourself to make sure that you feel ready for it. An informational interview
is a safe environment to ask questions but just make sure you don't feel like it's too safe or you're too relaxed where
you haven't really prepped and done your research ahead of time. Look up things about the
company and that person. Understand their current trajectory. Look up the company they work for. Understand what they do,
the size of the company. When you understand things about them, their company, their industry, it gives you a lot of credibility and you will impress them. Prepare your questions ahead of time. Really think about what you wanna get out
of the conversation. All of this preparation is to make sure that you are leading the conversation. It's really awkward if you're
in an informational interview and the person who has asked
you to do the interview is not leading the conversation. It gets really weird and it feels like it's
kind of wasted time. So that leads us in to the
fourth step: the conversation. So I'm gonna give you an outline of how a lot of my
informational interviews go and depending on what you're trying to get out of the conversation, you may wanna adjust this. First thing to do is
tell them about yourself. Spend about three minutes
talking about your interests, where your career has gone, and really what you're
hoping to accomplish. Make sure you're being concise. This interview is about
getting information about them so definitely give them that context but keep it to about three minutes. So what should you ask in the interview? One way to approach
informational interviews is to have the following three objectives. First is to understand
their role and career. The second is to understand
the path they took to get to where they are today. The third is to ask them their advice about how you can build
our skills and level up in that career. So let's start with understanding
their role and career. You wanna ask about their daily life. What does their job consist of? Really get into the nitty gritty. So if they say they do
administrative work, really understand what
is administrative work. What are these tasks that
you do in a given day? This will help you picture
yourself in the role. Then, you wanna move into why are they passionate about their job? What's their favorite part? That's really important
for you to understand the advantages of doing
the job they're doing. Next, you wanna ask
them about the toughest or their least favorite part of the job. Even people who are very
happy with their role, they still have unsavory aspects of it. So make sure to uncover
those less glamorous things to really make sure that you understand the full scope of the role. One question you can ask is what's something you didn't know before coming into this industry that you wish someone would've told you? Another way to ask this is
on a scale of one to 10, how satisfied are you
with your current role? Then, if they say anything
that's lower than a 10, you ask them, so what would make it a 10? This opens them up to be candid
about areas of improvement. I do realize how nerdy it
sounds to ask a rating question in an informational interview. Nerd alert! So that's up to you if that's
your personality to do it. So now moving on to
understanding their path of how they got to where they are today. Make sure you ask them step by step, how did you get to where you are today? Where'd you start? How did you end up here? Make sure you get all the details, all the bumps in the road to really understand their trajectory and put it into a realistic
perspective for yourself. If you're asking about a specific company, you could ask them, what's the path to
rising through the ranks? And also ask how much time is expected to take it each stage. That part is really important. Make sure you really have a good idea of how long each step in their career took to get to the next level. The other question to ask is if you're going to go back in time to when you first entered
the working world, what would you differently? Another important question
to ask about their trajectory is how much money should
you be expecting to make at each stage in your career. I know this is kind of a personal question but you can frame it as less personal by saying how much should someone in this career path expect
to make at each stage. Talking about money is important so that you really know the full picture of what it's gonna be like
going into this career. Do be sensitive about this though. Frame it in the right way so that you don't put people off. And then finally, what advice do they have
for your personally. You could ask them, based
on what you know about me, what would make me more
attractive to a hiring manager, to get a role in this career? What kind of skills should I be building to make myself prepared
to enter this career? What are some books I should read? What are some conferences I should attend? Who are some people I should talk to? What do you notice about
me that would be alluring to a hiring manager or repel them? If there's anything specific
about your background that you want advice on,
now's the time to ask it. And you always wanna finish off by asking them if there's
anyone who they would recommend that you talk to next. This will give you your
next informational interview and that will be a nice, warm lead that they'll introduce you to. So throughout this entire conversation, make sure you're asking
killer follow-up questions. Don't just rely on your
script of questions. Step five: after the interview. So you've just finished up having this amazing informational interview and you may feel guilty. You may think that you are
much more junior than them and that you have nothing to give. Know that you have something
amazing to give to them and that is pure, genuine gratitude. People really enjoy helping and you're robbing them of that pleasure if you don't follow up afterwards
with a note or an email saying how valuable that conversation was and thanking them so much for their time. To really build a meaningful relationship, don't stop at that
follow-up thank you email. Keep following up. Keep updating them on your
career every six months or year or so. They are now invested in you. You gotta keep this going forever. Sorry, this is now for life. So those are the five steps. They have been so crucial to me in making sure I'm making
the best career decisions. A personal anecdote for me
in my junior year of college, I didn't know what I was
going to do with my career. I was getting a degree in psychology so I went in LinkedIn and I
looked up everyone in my network who had a psychology degree. I went on a bunch of
informational interviews across a ton of different career paths. I reached out to someone
who I'd met in college but didn't know too well. Her name is Liz. She'd gotten her masters
in applied psychology and had this really cool
job in people operations at a tech company. We got dinner. I was completely inspired
by her career path and her job and everything that entailed and it really connected with me and seemed like something
I really want to pursue. From there, I followed her path. She did a master's program. I did the same one. I kept her updated
throughout the whole process and she became quite the mentor to me and we got really close. Two years after that initial
dinner that we had together, she got me an internship at
the company she worked for and I was so grateful. I really don't think I could've gotten where I am today without her guidance. It does show that it's really important to take that first step to just reach out, even if you don't know someone very well. Though not all of us will meet someone as amazing and pivotal as Liz was to me, but there's tons of people out there who are willing to help. Do not let the silence or
rejections get in the way of you reaching out to people. Work towards finding those
people who will really help and truly nurture those
relationships, build them up. So those are all my tips for today. Go out there and do lots
of informational interviews and please leave in the
comments your personal stories and your personal tips about
informational interviews. Do not forget to subscribe. Thanks for watching!
