Job Searching with Social Media For Dummies, 2nd Edition

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 ...