An informational interview is a short, candidate-initiated conversation with someone who does a job or works at a company you are interested in. There is no open role on the table and no evaluation; the goal is to learn how the work actually functions, what the team values and how people get hired there. It typically lasts 20 to 30 minutes.
What Informational Interview means in practice
You request an informational interview by email or LinkedIn message, usually from an alum, a former colleague or a second-degree connection, and you set the agenda. Sessions run 15 to 30 minutes and are best treated as research rather than a disguised job pitch. Strong questions target things a posting never says: how the team is structured, what the first six months really look like, which skills the manager keeps hiring for, why people leave. It sits before the formal process rather than inside it, though it often ends in a referral, an introduction, or a heads-up about a role that has not been posted yet.
Why it matters for candidates
Referrals convert far better than cold applications at most companies, and informational interviews are the most natural route to one. They also give you the vocabulary of the team, which makes later answers sound like an insider rather than someone paraphrasing the careers page. The main risk is asking for a job too early; keep the conversation genuinely about learning and any referral tends to arrive on its own.
How to prepare
- Ask for 20 minutes and say why you picked this person specifically.
- Prepare five questions the job posting could never answer.
- Do not ask for a job in the first message or the first meeting.
- Send a thank-you within 24 hours naming one thing you acted on.
- Follow up with a short progress update a month or two later.
Example
A teacher moving into instructional design messages a designer at a target company: same university, two years in the role, one specific question about their portfolio. They get 25 minutes. The questions are about how project intake works and which portfolio pieces actually get read. Near the end, the designer offers to flag the candidate's profile to a hiring manager. No role existed that week; one opened six weeks later and the candidate was contacted directly.
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