Use This Tool for Professional Development

Want to make more work friends, change jobs, or learn new things? Talking with people in informational interviews can help you do that. But how do you get started? Here are three tips to help you get the most out of this professional development tool.

Know Your Goal

Before you do an informational interview, you should know what you want to learn. What do you hope to understand better from the interview? Do you want to learn about a job or industry? Do you want to find new ways to get better at a skill? Or do you want to figure out what skills you need to improve? These are all good reasons for an informational interview. But if you don’t know your goal before you start, you might not learn anything.

Your goal helps you decide what questions to ask and what to talk about. It gives your conversation direction and makes it easier for you and the person you’re interviewing to understand each other.

Keep Track of Your Interviews

If you want to use informational interviews to meet more people, you should write down who you talked to and what you talked about. Make a list with details like who you talked to, what your goal was, what you learned, and their contact details. You can also list people you want to talk to next.

A list of your informational interviews can help you remember who you talked to and what you talked about. After an interview, it’s good to keep in touch with the person you talked to. Don’t email them every week, but don’t let a year go by without saying hi or catching up over coffee, especially if you had a good conversation. Your list can help you remember who you haven’t talked to in a while.

Ask This Question

At the end of every informational interview, you should ask: “Who else should I talk to to learn more about this?” The person you interviewed might know someone else who can help you. This is how you meet more and more people. The people you talk to probably know a lot of other people, so don’t be scared to ask if they can introduce you to others.

Conclusion

Informational interviews can really help you, and now you know how to use them to make your career better. So, what are you waiting for? Set up your next informational interview today!