PSA: don't ask your friends or contacts to take informational interviews

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you spend less time here, you may have time.

Touche

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am always happy to do informational interviews. I'm busy like many of us, but always try find time. And it almost always inspires me to meet someone still in school or early in their career who is excited about their future and enthused about meeting a grayhair like me, with no expectation of anything other than hearing my insights. It often brings back nostalgia for my earlier days and gives me hope for our future. I got to meet with older and wiser professionals when I was younger, and never once expecting a job out of it -- to the contrary, I was grateful to get a glimpse of what my future might be like. It also helped give me another layer of understanding with the field I was asking about and helped me feel more confident the next time I interviewed for an actual job.

It seems a little Scrooge-like for someone already fortunately enough to have been employed a long time to expect the world not to ask you for such a tiny act of kindness. The job market is so depressing right now for many students and new professionals, no matter how enterprising they are. If they can't even find someone willing to talk informationally, I worry it could just exacerbate the despair they might already be feeling.

They’re not excited about the future. They’re excited about you slipping their resume in front of someone who can hire them or dropping your name to get a leg up.

Why not both?

[Anonymous]

Wildly successful people don’t have time for OP’s games. If you want me to meet with someone for an info interview, just ask. Most of the time I’ll say yes because most of the time people are pretty thoughtful about who they are recommending. And anyone who knows networking well knows that you give more than you take, and karma rewards you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a VP in a fortune 500 company and I meet with more junior people for this type of stuff a lot.

It’s no skin off my back and sometimes they just want an outside perspective from somebody who is not directly impacted by what they’re searching for. Also, they can take my advice or leave it. I don’t really care.

If I’m really busy with a project, I might not do it immediately or I might push them off for a week or two, but I usually find the time on a Friday or something like that.

+1, down to the title and company size

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is almost never a good idea. Successful people are wildly busy with zero time. Asking them to speak to someone for whom they have no existing job, is a waste of their time and a waste of the person's time. It also forces them to either be rude to you and say no, or feel over burdened and resentful. Please dont do this.

A better alternative is to ask someone if they ever have need for xyz service, will they let you know, as you have a great contact who you'd love them to meet. That allows them to either say 'sure thing' or say 'oh i'd love to meet them now'.

There is never anything wrong with asking someone to have coffee to talk about their career and line of work. It's 30 minutes, suck it up. Or rather, tell your "important" husband to suck it up. We all know you're just annoyed because your husband had to miss dinner again last night.

[Anonymous]

I work at a nonprofit organzation and stopped doing informational interviews after my first few months on the job. Every student in North America (and plenty in Europe) will happily take some of your time and it will NEVER lead to a job (in part because for most of my career, I was not in a hiring role.) Now half the federal government is emailing to find time for a coffee.

I sympathize, really and truly I do. But it's not a great use of either of our time. Now I have to avoid clicking on LinkedIn messages, since they apparently tell the sender that you opened the message, which seems to persuade some young people that they should send yet ANOTHER message.

I'll also say that I don't think it makes sense for a student or new graduate to be asking me for early career advice. I mean, I wrote my first cover letters on a typewriter; these kids are going to have to outcompete AI! And now that I'm in management, it's quite different from anything that an entry-level staffer would be doing. I would suggest targeting people in their 20s or early 30s - they will have more flexibility and be able to give a better perspective on their role and the field, etc.

I'm suprised that so many PPs make time for informational interviews. I don't know about your workload, but my inbox and to-do list is endless. It is not a sign of good time management if you have endless time to speak to total strangers who are hoping for a Cinderella story. As a FT WOHM I have to be relentlessly practical about how I budget my own bandwidth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The most wildly successful and busy people I know always have 30 minutes to meet with someone. That's how they got so successful.

+1. Successful people are generous and want to help others.

[Anonymous]

OP is clueless. Networking is the best way to get a job.

My husband (who’s a biglaw practice group leader) did an informational interview with a junior in college to discuss the type of law he practices and the path he took to get there. That guy is now a law student and checks in with my husband every few months and is ultimately going to end up as an associate working for my husband next year. Worthwhile for my husband because he’s going to be able to hire a known commodity who already understands the practice group.

[Anonymous]

If you don't give informational interviews, you should because you should learn to be able to talk about your job and your business. If you are getting too many requests, then you should develop some sort of group presentation that you can put out there on a blog or YouTube or some such, and take questions in a way that you can efficiently respond to by posting publicly.

Look at how popular authors handle fan engagement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP is clueless. Networking is the best way to get a job.

My husband (who’s a biglaw practice group leader) did an informational interview with a junior in college to discuss the type of law he practices and the path he took to get there. That guy is now a law student and checks in with my husband every few months and is ultimately going to end up as an associate working for my husband next year. Worthwhile for my husband because he’s going to be able to hire a known commodity who already understands the practice group.

Seems pretty unlikely that that random junior is going to turn out to be a great candidate. Looks like lazy recruiting that's great for the kid but not great for the business.

[Anonymous]

I don't know what this is.

[Anonymous]

I agree with you, OP. I think this is terrible advice that we give to job seekers.

[Anonymous]

I’m happy to do them! I love sharing my work and hearing from younger people in the field, as they sometimes have good insight as to newer technology or research. I have no hiring power, but have met with younger people who years later end up working where I do. Networking is important.

[Anonymous]

As a woman, it is my experience that men agree to this more than women, same with linked-in connections. I really hate to admit this. The men that didn’t agree to speak with me were the academic, PhD types that are really high on a horse.

You would think women know how hard it can be to get their foot in the door or advance, in mainly male-dominated workplaces, and would want to help another woman with some helpful information so she can get ahead. So fellow women, I encourage you to ask a man for an informational interview and see if this works for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am always happy to do informational interviews. I'm busy like many of us, but always try find time. And it almost always inspires me to meet someone still in school or early in their career who is excited about their future and enthused about meeting a grayhair like me, with no expectation of anything other than hearing my insights. It often brings back nostalgia for my earlier days and gives me hope for our future. I got to meet with older and wiser professionals when I was younger, and never once expecting a job out of it -- to the contrary, I was grateful to get a glimpse of what my future might be like. It also helped give me another layer of understanding with the field I was asking about and helped me feel more confident the next time I interviewed for an actual job.

It seems a little Scrooge-like for someone already fortunately enough to have been employed a long time to expect the world not to ask you for such a tiny act of kindness. The job market is so depressing right now for many students and new professionals, no matter how enterprising they are. If they can't even find someone willing to talk informationally, I worry it could just exacerbate the despair they might already be feeling.

They’re not excited about the future. They’re excited about you slipping their resume in front of someone who can hire them or dropping your name to get a leg up.

That's awfully cynical of you. For most people it is legit exploring the field and career path.