A Beginner’s Guide to Informational Interviews & Networking

85% of all jobs are filled through networking. That’s a lot.

That number itself should be enough of an incentive for you to start connecting with interesting, potentially helpful people right away but I get it, networking can still be intimidating. Trying to sound smart in front of highly accomplished professionals with years of business experience is a daunting thought to many college students. Yet, networking is absolutely essential in an increasingly competitive and digitally connected world.

Don’t worry. I’ve been there. And I’m here to tell you: It is not as difficult as you think. 

While I was able to establish genuine connections with classmates, faculty, and staff over the course of my undergraduate career, much to my regret, I didn’t actively start networking for job purposes until my senior year of college. If you are an incoming freshman, a rising sophomore or even a rising junior reading this, please do not wait until the very last minute, start now! Networking requires practice, just like any other skill you acquire over time. If you start NOW, you’ll be a pro by the time senior year recruitment comes around.

The easiest way to get into networking is by setting up so called “informational interviews” with people that are in interesting roles at companies you are considering working for. Those interviews are usually 30-minute long phone calls where you get the opportunity to ask detailed questions about the person’s educational and professional background, their current job, and employer. The goal here is to learn by asking good questions and thereby getting a solid conversation going that might eventually turn into a mentor-mentee relationship.

But how do you even get to that point?

Here are 5 - hopefully helpful - tips based on my own networking experiences that I wish someone had shared with me when I first started.

1) Introductions Are Golden

The chances of getting ahold of someone you would like to talk to are highest when you have a mutual connection who can do an email introduction. Go through your already existing network and find out whom your connections are connected to. LinkedIn allows you to filter for 2nd-degree connections, which makes it really easy for you to identify mutual contacts. Once you have found someone you would ideally set up an informational interview with, reach out to your mutual connection and ask if they’d be willing to do an intro.

A typical intro usually looks something like this:

I personally was very lucky because one of the academic programs I was a part of at my alma mater, Duke University, has a staff member - he since has become a mentor and friend - whose job it is to connect students with alumni (among many other awesome things). I have never met anyone who is better connected than him. Said mentor was able to introduce me to at least 15-20 people in the tech and sports industries that I ended up having informational interviews with. If there is someone at your school in a similar role (keywords: student and alumni affairs/engagement), make sure to meet up with them.

However, if you aren’t able to find someone who can make an introduction, don’t sweat. Cold emails and LinkedIn messages are still an option. In fact, that’s how I landed two great paid side-gigs out of college. Here’s a draft of what a cold email could look like. Obviously, adjust it as needed so it fits your own tone and rhetorical style.

If you have trouble finding someone’s email or they’re not responsive on LinkedIn (some people just aren’t), there is a nifty Chrome extension called “Clearbit Connect”, which allows you to find business email addresses, for free. I personally haven’t had great success with it but that’s probably due to the fact that my networking has mainly focused on my university’s alumni network, which brings me to my next point.

2) Leverage Your University Alumni Network

I cannot emphasize this enough! Alumni can turn into your biggest advocates. In my experience, they are very excited to talk to current students because it is a way for them to a) reconnect with their university and reminisce about the “good old times” and b) give something back to the place that has given them so much. Besides, since you’ll always have at least that one commonality - your alma mater - it’ll be much easier to start a conversation. I’m fairly certain that 90% of the people I’ve talked to at this point are Duke alumni. I ended up working on projects for some of them and they were able to introduce me to even more interesting people.

If your university has an alumni database, I strongly encourage you to leverage it (If you are a fellow Dukie, go to alumni.duke.edu/students to access the alumni network). If your university doesn’t have its own digital network, you can always use LinkedIn and filter for “School” and “Company” to find alumni who work at companies you are interested in.

Let’s assume you have identified and reached out to someone and they agreed to a call. What now?

3) Do Your Research and Prepare Questions

One of the highest barriers to networking that I have observed among my peers is self-doubt. Let’s take my college roommate for example: She is one of the smartest, most hardworking, most organized, most involved, most dedicated, and most social people I have ever met and yet I had to give her multiple kicks in the butt to start networking senior spring because she claimed she couldn’t come up with any good questions to ask. I called bs on that. :-)

If you put in the time to do your research, everyone can come up with solid questions. I personally like to divide my questions into 3 sectors:

1. Questions about the person’s educational and professional background
2. Questions about current industry and company trends
3. Asking for specific advice on how to tackle the application process or more specifically, questions about the company’s recruitment process

Coming up with good questions about trends requires the most preparation but is also extremely important because it shows the person you’re talking to that you’re serious about this conversation and that you have done your homework. One of the most successful informational interviews that I can recall was with a Duke alum who is working in Pinterest’s partnership department. I had done a lot of research in advance and therefore knew that the company was focusing on generating ad revenue from what they refer to as “intent data”. At the time, Pinterest also started to invest more in video. Just talking about those two topics filled up a good amount of those 30 minutes and I learned quite a bit over a relatively short period of time. A few days later, the person who had introduced us, received an email from said Pinterest employee, saying that they were very impressed with me and that I was the “most well-prepared of any networking call” they had had in the past 5 years, business school students included. Lesson learned: Good prep does pay off!

She was the most well-prepared of any networking call I've had in the past 5 years, inclusive of Fuqua students.

I would recommend following all companies you’re interested in on social media to get a general understanding of what they’re up to but then the day before your phone call, search Google News for recent stories on the respective company. For example, if you’re talking to someone from Microsoft, I’d ask about the recent GitHub acquisition. If you’re having an informational interview with someone from Tesla, you could talk about the mini-submarine Elon Musk and his team built in response to the Thai cave rescue mission. Ask an Instagram employee about IGTV and the future of vertical video.

I usually prepare 7-8 questions but most of the time I’m only able to ask 5 or 6 before the 30 minutes are up. Also make sure to take extensive notes that you can revisit in the future.

Here are a 10 generic, non-industry specific questions I’ve used in the past:

1. If you could change anything about your company, what would that be?
2. What did you learn in this role that you couldn’t have learned anywhere else?
3. If I want to go into [insert your industry/preferred role], what skills should I start developing now?
4. How did your early career choices lead to where you are today?
5. What was the biggest mistake you have made and what did you learn from it?
6. What is the biggest risk you have taken?
7. How did you set yourself apart from other candidates who wanted the same job?
8. What impresses you the most when you are considering hiring someone?
9. Could you walk me through your work day yesterday?
10. What’s it like to work as a woman in a predominantly male environment? 

No matter how well prepared you are, you’ll probably still be a little nervous during your first few calls and that is totally okay and normal. That being said, I want you to always keep one thing in mind: 

4) CEOs are human, too. 

Despite their numerous accomplishments and impressive résumés, every CEO, President, CFO, VP is still human. ;-) While they deserve all the respect and recognition for their hard work, most successful people - if not all - wouldn’t be where they are today without the help of countless mentors and supporters who have provided advice and guidance along the way. In most cases, these people started out right where you are today: as college students. They know what it’s like to be looking for an internship or your first job out of school and were probably just as nervous to connect with older, more experienced professionals as you are now. Trust me, there is no need to be nervous. In my personal experience, most people gladly take the time to talk to you on the phone for 30 minutes and answer your questions. After all, people love talking about themselves.

5) Maintaining Relationships

Please note that not every connection turns into a life-long mentor. If I manage to establish and maintain a genuine relationship with one or two people out of ten that I’ve talked to, I view that as a success. There will always be people you’ll click with and others you won’t click with. Mutual interests oftentimes help - in my case soccer and college basketball.

In order to maintain a relationship, I recommend reaching out to your contacts every couple of months, especially when you have exciting new life updates to share, such as landing a new job or getting into grad school. If you happen to travel and end up in a city where one of your connections lives, try to set up a coffee date. Meeting in person oftentimes solidifies a relationship that was previously based on phone and email exchanges.

I have to admit, I’m not always great at keeping in touch with everyone myself because it is hard to keep track of all the people in your network (If you're one of the people I've talked to and you haven't heard from me in a while, my sincere apologies!! I promise it is nothing personal. Life, you know.). Creating an Excel spreadsheet that lists name, company, role, email, date of first connection, date of follow-up and conversation notes as well as setting alarms on your calendar reminding you to reach out to person XY ~6 months from now has been helpful.

Yes, networking is time-consuming and can be exhausting - but at the same time it is incredibly rewarding and might change your life for the better. So go for it!

I hope this article was insightful and served as an incentive for you to tackle networking. I would love to hear from you about your networking experiences. Maybe you have some advice I haven’t touched upon or you disagree with some of the things I have said? Either way, please let me know.

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Hi, I'm Thamina! I was born and raised in Munich, Germany and moved to Durham, NC in August 2014 to attend Duke University as a transfer student. In May 2017, I graduated cum laude and with distinction with a bachelor's degree in Political Science, Policy Journalism & Media Studies, and Innovation & Entrepreneurship. During my time as an undergrad, I gained a lot of experience in social media and digital marketing working for FC Bayern Munich, Duke Athletics, and Duke University. After graduation I decided to stay at Duke to pursue a one-year long Digital Communications Fellowship while working remotely as Social Media Creative Editor for the German Bundesliga on weekends. This upcoming October I will be joining LinkedIn as Global Sales Business Leadership Program Associate in Dublin, Ireland, which I am incredibly excited about. I'm a die-hard Duke Basketball and Bayern Munich fan, very passionate about my alma mater and gender equality advocacy. Feel free to connect if we share any interests.