Informational Interviews: Best Questions to Ask

Key Takeaways

when done correctly informational interviews or coffee chats will not only give you an inside perspective on your dream company but will also allow you to find out about opportunities that may not be posted publicly yet and the single biggest factor that determines how the conversation goes is the quality of the questions that you ask since that deeply affects how your interviewee feels about you are they going to forget about you the next day or will they go out of their way and introduce you to their contacts thereby expanding your network and perhaps even vouch for you when a position does open up in this video i'm going to share the three types of questions you want to ask in every informational interview share two to three examples from each type and a non-negotiable question you always want to end with so let's get started what most professionals are looking for when they agree to have an informational interview with you is that they're trying to see whether you have a genuine curiosity about the industry about the company about the role and you can show that you do by asking questions from the following three categories number one tasks and responsibilities number two career path and number three industry knowledge taken together questions from these three categories show them that you've given a lot of thought on all aspects of the job and company instead of focusing only on superficial benefits like free food for example diving right into two example questions from the tasks and responsibilities category number one what aspect of your job do you find the most rewarding contrary to popular belief the tell me about your day-to-day question isn't a great question to ask because you might find that a lot of professionals nowadays may not have a typical day-to-day and they may end up still telling you some vague description of their roles and responsibilities by prompting them to think about what they find most rewarding about their work you help them drill down on specific situations and examples leading to a more concrete answer second question how's your performance measured or put another way what's your kpi i love this question because it gets right to the point how one might describe his or her job is always going to be a little bit subjective and arbitrary but come performance review time the metrics that their manager are reviewing them on those are always going to be in black and white it's just how companies standardize the performance review process their answer will give you a very realistic feel of the workload and responsibilities if you're working in a similar position by the way i have a facebook group where i share exclusive weekly tips so consider joining if you haven't already i'll link it down below moving on to examples from the career path category number one how'd you begin your career this question is great because the answer will give you insight into the decisions that person made purposefully or otherwise to arrive at their current role today you often find that very rarely are people's career trajectories completely linear there are usually a lot of twists and turns and that might give you confidence as you navigate your own path second example question if you think about a recent new hire you enjoyed working with what are some of their characteristics that come to mind again this question prompts them to think about a specific person and provide concrete examples making it a much more meaningful question than something like what advice would you have for someone who's just starting out number three what did you find the most surprising about the role to be honest this is just a very nice way to ask what do you not like about the role for informational interviews coffee chats they're usually very casual so you can definitely ask a question like this and expect to hear a pretty straightforward answer finally example questions regarding industry knowledge number one what publications do you recommend i subscribe to if i want to stay up to date on this industry's trends i feel like this question is pretty self-explanatory and really does demonstrate a very high level of interest in that target industry you want to be in but somehow it's very rarely asked most colleges and even companies have paid subscriptions available for not only the major news publications but also industry specific resources like emarketer if you're in marketing and bloomberg everywhere into finance and because there's a lot of content right you want to make sure you're spending your time wisely and regularly reading up on relevant content rather than having information overload second example question for industry knowledge what are some of the current events or trends in industry that i should be aware of so this question is interesting not only because you get to hear their point of view on current events in a specific industry but will also give you an opportunity to share your industry knowledge given that you have done some sort of homework beforehand so it's like two birds one stone you can use what you hear from them in your next actual interview and get to impress them with the research you've done in a very natural non-forced way if you found these example questions helpful please give this video a like and let me know down in the comments below which questions you will use in your next coffee chat last but not least a question that doesn't fall in any of those three categories because it's a question you want to ask at the end of every single informational interview or coffee chat and that is based on what we discussed today is there anyone else you think i should talk to i'm not even exaggerating when i say this question could be the deciding factor on whether you get closer to that dream role of yours from a nerdy statistical standpoint the more relevant people you meet in a given field the higher the chance of someone being able to help you get to where you want to be it's very easy to see someone land a great role and chalk it up to luck and i agree but you can always increase the surface area of which luck can hit you by putting yourself out there by asking to be introduced to the next person by having that next coffee chat by not asking this question it's like leaving money on the table the worst thing that can happen is that the interviewee awkwardly laughs and says no i'm sorry and that's totally fine so that wraps up the three types of questions you should always ask during informational interviews please remember the questions i provided are just examples and if you have your own questions as long as the three categories are covered you're good to go let me know down in the comments if you have any questions and subscribe if you haven't already see you on the next video in the meantime have a great one [Music] you