Informational Interviewing for College Students

Informational Interviewing for College Students

Whether you have identified your career goals or are in the process of identifying your career goals, there is one important activity you can do to set, clarify or build on your career goals.


That is informational interviewing!


Have you heard of informational interviewing? It’s an activity where you identify a professional in the career area you are exploring or have targeted for your career journey, reach out to them, prepare and ask targeted questions about their role, career journey, and specific company for 20-30 minutes.


Keep in mind that informational interviews are not meetings to ask for a job. It is a meeting to get to know the person, their role, learn about their company or industry and to mutually help each other out (if possible).


To learn more about informational interviewing (also known as coffee chats or career conversations), check out these resources.

a.????? How to set up career conversations (PDF)

b.????? Prepare for career conversations (PDF)

c.????? Video Tutorials on preparing for informational interviews


As a college student, if you would like to try out the process of informational interviewing contact a career coach in your career development center on your campus. It should be a free service (paid for by your student fees). If your career coach offers this service, follow the below steps:

  1. Visit the career coach's LinkedIn profile or profile on your college's website to learn more about their career journey.
  2. Draft an email to the career coach?or connect on LinkedIn to request an informational interview using the email strategy outlined in the video.
  3. Once your career coach responds, you can set up an appointment with them.
  4. Draft the questions you want to ask during the informational interview.
  5. Most likely a 30 minute session will be 15 minutes of you conducting the informational interview and 30 minutes of debrief with your career coach.


How does this sound?


If you are a University of Utah student, book your session with your career coach here.

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