Career Bites #12: Interview People

You’re willing to work hard, you want to add value, but you also want to enjoy your work and be inspired in your career path. Right now, you probably have no idea how to do that. The key is to interview people. No, not take job interviews. You. Interview. People.

If you followed Our last two Career Bites: Be a Long Term Visionary and Be a Short Term Pragmatist, you have a great framework for making confident career choices that advance you towards your long-term objectives. If you followed Career Bite 1, you’ve started considering your preferences, so you can also target the right work environments, team dynamics, and corporate values that suit your character.

But all of that will just arm you with the right follow-up questions, it won’t give you insight into which jobs actually align with your needs and preferences.

Internet research is always the best place to start, but it’s not enough to get the full inside scoop on the options available to you. Enter the Informational Interview. Here it is: Talk to people (at least 20!) and find out what their jobs are actually like. Target people in career fields that interest you, and ask what they do on a daily basis, what impact they see from their efforts, and how they are evaluated at the company.

For more guidance on Informational Interviews, check out our complete guide to doing a great one. And keep in touch with the people you meet. No bad manners. They just might help you get a job one day, so a succinct explanation of why you’re doing this, why their opinion is valuable to you, and even a handwritten thank-you afterwards will put you in good stead.