LCD Graduate Fellow
An article in Slate last week discussed the pros and cons of the tried-and-true job search tactic known as the informational interview. This approach involves emailing or calling an employer and asking them for a brief meeting over coffee or lunch to inquire about their job and career, and to seek any advice they may have for you about your own career.While the author of the Slate piece seems to suggest that this is a disingenuous way to network, she cannot deny that it absolutely works. She admits, in fact, that, “Once I’ve met someone, she’s no longer an abstraction—she’s a real, friendly, sweet, awkward person, and I now have an emotional investment in her success or failure. So I give her pitch the benefit of the doubt. I’ve accepted pitches that I probably would have passed on had I not met the person face to face.”
The author sums up the piece like this: “I hate disappointing people, and I especially hate disappointing people I know. And that is exactly how ‘informational interviews’ are supposed to work.”
Social scientists have recently coined a term for this mentality: The Ben Franklin Effect, based on an “old maxim” Franklin discussed throughout his life: “He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.”
In his autobiography (available in full, free of charge, here), Franklin recounts the following tale about a rival legislator when he served in the Pennsylvania legislature:
Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he would do me the favour of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I return'd it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favour. When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death.It sounds counterintuitive, but has held true in the three-hundred years since Franklin first wrote this advice: Once someone has done you one favor, they’re more likely to do you another.
And that next favor could be your next job.
But there is an art form to asking for an informational interview, stresses Steve Dalton, author of The 2-Hour Job Search and Program Director for Daytime Career Services at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.
Dalton suggests writing a specific “five-point email” when contacting employers. He recommends an email such as this:
Hi Jamie,
I read your Q&A on YumSocialMedia.com and I liked your perspective on why companies should shift social marketing efforts from Facebook to Twitter.
Could you spare some time to discuss further? I'm trying to learn more about how marketers optimize social media usage, so your insights would be appreciated.
Steve
Dalton says there’s no need to mention that you’re interested in a job at this stage, because that may already be apparent and implicit, as “nobody executes this process for fun,” he says.Then, once you have the meeting with an employer, there is an art form to the informational interview itself.
New York Times “Shifting Careers” writer Marci Alboher recommends approaching the interview with the mindset to learn something rather than to get a job, and to think about the interview as a chance to build a relationship and expand your network.
In addition, here are 14 questions she offers to give you an idea of what exactly to ask during the informational interview:
1. Can you tell me how you got to this position?
2. What do you like most about what you do, and what would you change if you could?
3. How do people break into this field?
4. What are the types of jobs that exist where you work and in the industry in general?
5. Where would you suggest a person investigate if the person were particularly skilled at (fill in the blank — quantitative thinking, communications, writing, advocacy)?
6. What does a typical career path look like in your industry?
7. What are some of the biggest challenges facing your company and your industry today?
8. Are there any professional or trade associations I should connect with?
9. What do you read — in print and online — to keep up with developments in your field?
10. How do you see your industry changing in the next 10 years?
11. If you were just getting involved now, where would you put yourself?
12. What’s a typical day like for you?
13. What’s unique or differentiating about your company?
14. How has writing a book (starting a blog, running a company, etc.) differed from your expectations? What have been the greatest moments and biggest challenges?
Armed with these questions, you should be all set to knock ‘em dead at your next informational interview. It worked for Ben Franklin, and it could just work for you.
