An Informational Interview (also known as an informational meeting, coffee chat, or more generically, networking) is a conversation in which a person seeks insights on a career path, an industry, a company and/or general career advice from someone with experience and knowledge in the areas of interest. Informational interviews are often casual and candid conversations where both parties are focused simply on acquiring and sharing knowledge. They can also be formal if the knowledge seeker is a job seeker and the knowledge provider is a potential employer whose goal is not only to provide information to the job seeker, but also to learn about the job seeker and judge their professional potential and corporate fit.
[1]
Knowledge seekers use informational interviews to gather information on an industry and on specific companies where they might want to work, explore career paths, uncover job opportunities, and expand their professional network. Knowledge providers use informational interviews to share their knowledge and lend a helping hand, expand their professional network and meet potential employees and business partners.
Informational interviews differ from job interviews because the conversation is not about hiring and not about a specific job. The knowledge seeker asks general questions about an industry, company or career path, and the knowledge provider has an opportunity to learn about the knowledge seeker's character and qualifications outside of a formal job interview process. Thus, informational interviews help overcome a problem in recruiting/job-seeking processes, where each side may be hesitant to talk to the other because they are uncertain about whether they might be wasting their time with an unqualified candidate or unsuitable workplace. Informational interviews provide a "non-threatening forum" for discussion as the two sides learn about each other.[2]
The term was coined by Richard Nelson Bolles, author of the best-selling career handbook What Color Is Your Parachute?.[3]
^ Grace Chao. "How To Explore Careers And Find A Job By Talking To People". Retrieved October 18, 2020.
^ Dawn Rosenberg McKay. "The Informational Interview: Getting the Inside Scoop on an Occupation". About.com. Retrieved January 20, 2014.
^Richard Nelson Bolles (2013). What Color Is Your Parachute?: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers. New York: Crown Publishing. ISBN 9781607743644.
and 24 Related for: Informational interview information
InformationalInterview". The New York Times. Retrieved January 6, 2014. Alison Doyle. "InformationalInterviews: What is an InformationalInterview and...
television host interviews one or more people, with the topic usually chosen by the host, sometimes for entertainment, sometimes for informational purposes....
The Interview is a 2014 American political satire action comedy film produced and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg in their second directorial...
motives, and experiences. Interviews are also useful for eliciting the language used by group members, gathering information about processes that cannot...
A job interview is an interview consisting of a conversation between a job applicant and a representative of an employer which is conducted to assess...
A coding interview, technical interview, programming interview or Microsoft interview is a technical problem-based job interview technique to assess applicants...
A mock interview is an emulation of a job interview used for training purposes. The conversational exercise usually resembles a real interview as closely...
police also did not record their interviews, making it impossible to know for sure how much informationinterviewers gave Lucas unprompted. Henry Lucas...
"An Interview with HRH The Princess of Wales" is an episode of the BBC documentary series Panorama which was broadcast on BBC1 on 20 November 1995. The...
person's specific information need(s), which may turn out to be different from the reference question as initially posed...A reference interview may occur in...
member and an association. An organization can use the information gained from an exit interview to assess what should be improved, changed, or remain...
An information cascade or informational cascade is a phenomenon described in behavioral economics and network theory in which a number of people make the...
unstructured interview or non-directive interview is an interview in which questions are not prearranged. These non-directive interviews are considered...
The cognitive interview (CI) is a method of interviewing eyewitnesses and victims about what they remember from a crime scene. Using four retrievals, the...
The Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) is a structured interview conducted with the parents of individuals who have been referred for the evaluation...
Intake interviews are the most common type of interview in clinical psychology. They occur when a client first comes to seek help from a clinician. The...
Gita Mehta at the Wayback Machine (archived 27 October 2009) Bio-bibliographical Information "Interview: Gita Mehta". Random House. Gita Mehta at IMDb...
hosted by American media personality Oprah Winfrey, that featured an interview between Winfrey, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harry, Duke of...
Outstanding Informational Series or Special from 2013 until 2019, and was also presented from 1978 to 1998. From 1998 until 2012, informational series competed...
The Stokes interview is a secondary interview conducted on a couple who are trying to obtain an immigration green card in the United States on the basis...
an informational asset (or the loss of the asset). A vulnerability is a weakness that could be used to endanger or cause harm to an informational asset...
the professional profile of a candidate. This is followed by an informationalinterview designed to determine alignment with the program's goals. Further...
first aired from September 8, 1998 with popular content, music, information, interviews, jokes, humor, fun, the main news from Brazil and the world and...
purportedly non-scientific fields Denning, Peter (June 2007), Ubiquity a new interview with Peter Denning on the great principles of computing, vol. 2007, p...
Global Information