How to Conduct the Interview Well

If you approach people in the right manner, at least 50 percent of those you contact for informational interviews will meet with you. Some job hunters are never refused such an interview. Assuming you too are successful in scheduling these interviews, what do you do at the interview?

In the informational interview you are asking for four things:

• Information
  
  
  
  
• Advice
  
  
• Referrals
  
  
• To be remembered
  

At the same time, you are trying to impress upon the people you are interviewing that you possess the essential ingredients for being an outstanding employee: competent, intelligent, honest, enthusiastic, spontaneous, and likeable. These are the types of people individuals like to refer to others as well as hire for their own organization.

While the informational interview is relatively unstructured, it should follow a general pattern of questions and answers. The interview should take no more than 45 minutes. However, it may go much longer if your interviewee gets carried away in sharing his or her experiences and giving you advice. Some interviews may go on for two or more hours. But plan to cover your questions in a 30 to 45 minute period.

For best results, the interview should go something like this. The interview will begin with a few minutes of small talk - the weather, traffic, mutual acquaintances, a humorous observation. Next, you should initiate the interview by emphasizing your appreciation:

Thank you again for taking time to see me today. I appreciate your willingness to speak with me about my career plans. It is a subject which is very important to me at this juncture of my life.

Follow this statement with a re-statement of your purpose, as you mentioned in your letter and/or over the telephone:

I am in the process of exploring several job and career alternatives. I know what I do well and enjoy doing. But before I make any decisions, I am trying to benefit from the counsel of individuals, such as you, who have a great deal of experience in the area of xxxxx. I am particularly interested in learning more about opportunities, necessary skills, responsibilities, advantages, disadvantages, and the future outlook for this field.

Such a general statement should elicit a response from the individual. It should put him or her at ease by stressing your need at this time for information and counsel rather than a job.

Be sure you communicate your purpose at this stage and that you know what you want to do. If you don't the individual may feel you are wasting his or her time. Thus, you need to know your strengths as well as have a clearly defined objective prior to this interview.

The next section of the interview should focus on several "how" and "what" questions concerning specific jobs or careers:

JOB AND CAREER QUESTIONS -

• Duties and responsibilities
  
  
• Knowledge, skills, abilities, and qualifications
  
  
• Work environments - fellow employees, deadlines, stress, problems
  
  
• Advantages and disadvantages
  
  
• Future outlook
  
  
• Salary ranges
  

Each of these questions can take a great deal of time to answer and discuss. Therefore, prioritize the ones you most need to ask, and try to keep the conversation moving on the various subjects.

Your second major line of questioning should center on your job search. Here you want to solicit useful advice for improving your job search. In relation to the previous job-content questions, you now want to know how to:

JOB SEARCH QUESTIONS

• Acquire the required skills
  
  
• Find a job related to this field
  
  
• Overcome employers' objections to you
  
  
• Identify both advertised and unadvertised job vacancies
  
  
• Develop new job leads
  
  
• Approach prospective employers
  

Your last major set of questions should deal with your resume. Remember, you have taken copies of your resume to this interview but the person has not seen your resume yet. You have done this purposefully so the individual will get to know you prior to seeing your paper qualifications. At this point you ask the person to critique your resume. Give him or her a copy and ask these questions:

RESUME REVIEW QUESTIONS .

• Is this an appropriate type of resume for the jobs I have outlined?
  
  
• If an employer received this resume in the mail, how do you think he or she would react to it?
  
  
• What do you see as possible weaknesses or areas that need to be improved?
  
  
• What about the length, paper quality and color, layout, and typing? Are they appropriate?
  
  
• How might I best improve the form and content of the resume?
  

By doing this, the interviewee will be forced to read your resume - which is a good summary of what you talked about earlier in the interview. Most important of all, he or she will give you useful advice on how to improve and target your resume.

Your last two questions are actually requests to be referred and remembered. As you express your gratitude for the per-son's time, ask for referrals:

Thanks so much for all your assistance. I have learned a great deal today. Your advice will certainly help me give my job search better direction. I would like to ask one more favor if I could. By conducting research on various jobs, I am trying to benefit from the counsel of several people. Do you know two or three other people who might be willing to meet with me, as you have today?

Just before you leave, ask to be remembered for future reference:

While I know you may not know of a job opening at present for someone with my qualifications, I would appreciate it if you could keep me in mind if you learn of any openings. Please feel free to pass my name on to anyone you feel might be interested in my qualifications.

Make sure you leave a copy of your resume with this person so that he or she has something tangible to refer and remember you by.

Let's examine another example of an informational interview as we put all these elements together:

After completing this interview/ you should send a nice thank-you letter to this person. Not only is this a thoughtful thing to do, it is also a wise thing to do if you wish to be remembered and referred. Genuinely express your gratitude for the person's time and help, and reiterate your wish to be remembered and referred.