run-an-informational-interview

name	run-an-informational-interview
category	get-hired
description	Learn from a career conversation through preparation, listening, bounded questions, and reciprocal follow-up. Use when someone has agreed to share experience outside a formal hiring interview.

run-an-informational-interview

Procedure

1. Confirm time, channel, purpose, confidentiality, and what the person is comfortable discussing.
2. Research the person's public work and the field without asking them to repeat basic information.
3. Prepare questions about actual tasks, decisions, paths, tradeoffs, conditions, learning, and change.
4. Open with context and restate that no job or referral is expected.
5. Listen, ask specific follow-ups, and avoid turning every answer back into a self-pitch.
6. Ask permission before taking detailed notes, quoting, recording, or sharing anything.
7. Close on time, summarize learning, and clarify only genuinely offered next steps.
8. Send thanks, complete commitments, update assumptions, and protect private details.

Guardrails

• Do not solicit confidential company, candidate, customer, compensation, or personal information.
• Never record, quote, name, or contact another person without permission.
• Do not pressure the person for a referral or continued access.

Done

• A conversation plan contains researched context, bounded questions, timing, and consent checks
• Notes distinguish direct insight, opinion, assumption, and follow-up evidence
• Thank-you, commitments, and any permitted next step are completed