Welcome to the Just Get Hired Newsletter!

Everyone knows that your network is your net worth. Professional connections help lead to more job opportunities.

In today’s issue, I talk about the most important tool to grow your professional network: Informational Interviews.

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Let’s get into it.

Informational Interviews

Informational interviews are casual conversations with relevant people within your field / industry / company.

Think of them like an informal “interview” of someone that you want to join your professional network. Except they kind of work in reverse — typically the person you’re meeting with is actually subconsciously evaluating YOU to see if you are worth engaging with again in the future.

It’s your job to make sure that you are.

They serve two main purposes:

1) Improve your knowledge / expertise

2) Generate employment opportunities

Referrals / connections get you more opportunities in your career.

Informational interviews are the most effective way to secure them.

Let’s get into how to do them, starting with how to secure them:

1) Generate informational interviews

You secure informational interviews through two methods:

1) Existing network

2) Cold outreach

For your existing network, you should go to all your close friends, family, and colleagues and ask “is there anyone you should connect me to”.

Ideally you can get a list of at least 10-15 people to start with.

For cold outreach, you use HIGHLY personal messages about who you are and why you’re interested in meeting with them.

For example, you might find a sales professional on Linkedin and send them a message like:

“Hi XYZ, I see you’ve been working as an AE at XYZ company for the last 2 years. I really admire the sales team you’ve built and how effectively you sell your product. I am an SDR at XYZ company currently and was hoping to chat with you for 15 minutes about a few ideas I had about XYZ. Let me know if you can find 15 minutes to chat in the next few weeks!”

It’s important to know that cold outreach will obviously come with a lot of either no-replies or rejections. That’s ok.

As quickly as possible, you want to be relying upon warm leads (introductions from people in your network).

If you do informational interviews properly, you’ll start getting tons of these organically through the process.

2) Keep it short

You should be asking for 15 minutes or 30 minutes of someones time at the MOST.

Set expectations up front that you don’t want to take up much of their time.

A great way to set this up is by having a calendly or other calendar scheduling tool that someone can book a time at their convenience. This reduces back and forth trying to schedule a time.

When you do meet, have a very clear intro on who you are and how they can help you.

You can follow their lead if they run over the time, but always lean towards ending the conversation early than going long.

3) Have a tight story

You should be able to explain in 90 seconds who you are and what you’re looking for / interested in your career.

In addition, you should make it clear how they can help (more on this later).

With closer connections, you can be more ambiguous with what you’re looking for. For example, if you’re meeting with a closer friend, that’s the time to be like “I really don’t know what I want” and hash it out.

But when you branch out to new people, your interests and goals should be clear.

4) Ask well-informed questions

Before your conversation, you should do as much research as possible.

Don’t just “go through the motions” with these conversations.

Don’t ask “how do you like being in sales”.

Instead: “I saw you progressed from SDR to AE in 2 years, what was key to making that transition quickly?”

Be specific and informed.

5) Be willing to go off-script

Remember, the point of this is human connection, not “checking a box”.

Allow connections and curiosity to drive the conversation towards topics.

Reminisce if you both went to the same school, swap stories about working at a certain company, etc.

The conversation should be organic, not transactional.

6) Have a clear ask for them

Many people avoid asking for things to avoid appearing needy.

But people can’t help you unless you let them know how they can help you.

The key is to share without expectation.

I always like to ask: “is there anyone in your network that would be relevant to the goals and interests I’ve shared?”

If they work at a company that you’re interested in working at or that has active openings, you could also try:

“I really love what your company is doing, are there any roles / opportunities you think I would be a good fit for (if not, then can you let me know if any open up")”

or

“I really love your company, is there anyone else in the organization that you think would be relevant for me to talk to?”

7) Follow-up with a thank-you note

This is such an easy way to leave a great final impression + set up a way to communicate again in the future (email thread).

Let them know you appreciated their time, call out 1-2 things you found insightful in particular, and close with any next steps.

Bonus: if you take their advice (e.g. follow up with someone in their network, implement something they recommended), send another message about it.

Here’s to expanding your network in 2024.

One of my personal goals in 2024 is to grow this newsletter. If you get value out of my content, you can help by sharing the link below and getting credit for referrals :)

I appreciate you in advance!

-Ben