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Informational Interviews: Best Questions to Ask

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Informational Interviews: Best Questions to Ask

Jeff Su 14.10.2020 221 279 просмотров 6 466 лайков обн. 18.02.2026

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🎯 My free Job Search Toolkit: https://academy.jeffsu.org/job-search-toolkit?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=020 My Premium Resume Package: https://jeffsu.gumroad.com/l/premium-resume-package Questions you ask in an informational interview (or coffee chat) can make or break the experience for both of you, so in this video I share some of my best questions to ask during informational interviews. Informational interview questions should achieve 2 goals: (1) Tease out useful and meaningful insights from the professional you’re chatting with, and (2) Make an impression on them so they’d be more willing to vouch for you in the future. I share 3 “types” of questions to ask in an informational interview and provide 2-3 examples from each type. Taken together, these 3 categories of questions will show the interviewee you have given a lot of thought on all aspects of the job and company. So whether you call it an informational interview, exploratory interview, or simply a coffee chat, these questions will help you make a strong and positive impression that may ultimately lead to more opportunities. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Intro 00:57 The 3 Types of Questions you need to Ask 01:20 Sample Tasks and Responsibility Questions 02:28 Sample Career Path Questions 03:29 Sample Industry Knowledge Questions 04:56 Non-Negotiable Question 05:43 Summary 💪 Support this channel by becoming a member: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwAnu01qlnVg1Ai2AbtTMaA/join RESOURCES I MENTION IN THE VIDEO 🙋👦🏻 Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1190183907995020/ MY FAVORITE GEAR 🎥 My YouTube Gear - https://geni.us/youtube-gear 🎒 What's In My Bag - https://geni.us/mybag 💻 What's On My Desk - https://geni.us/mydesk 🛩 What I Travel With - https://geni.us/mytravel MY FAVORITE SOFTWARE ✍️ Skillshare - https://geni.us/skillshare-jeff 🎨 Canva - https://partner.canva.com/jeffsu BE MY FRIEND: 📧 Subscribe to my Productivity newsletter - https://www.jeffsu.org/productivity-ping/ 📸 Instagram - https://instagram.com/j.sushie 🤝 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jsu05/ 👋🏻 Clubhouse - @jsushie 👨🏻‍💻 WHO AM I: I'm Jeff, a full time Product Marketer. In my spare time I like to tinker with tools and create systems that help me get things done faster - or as one of my friends puts it: "Get better at being lazy" 😏 If you'd like to talk, I'd love to hear from you. Messaging me on Instagram (@j.sushie) directly will be the quickest way to get a response! PS: Some of the links in this description are affiliate links I get a kickback from 😇 Disclaimer: My opinions are my own and may not reflect that of my employer #informationalinterviews #coffeechats #networking #jobsearch

Оглавление (7 сегментов)

0:00 Intro 198 сл.
0:57 The 3 Types of Questions you need to Ask 62 сл.
1:20 Sample Tasks and Responsibility Questions 223 сл.
2:28 Sample Career Path Questions 192 сл.
3:29 Sample Industry Knowledge Questions 288 сл.
4:56 Non-Negotiable Question 172 сл.
5:43 Summary 66 сл.

Intro

- When done correctly, informational interviews or coffee chats will not only give you an inside perspective on your dream company, but will also allow you to find out about opportunities that may not be posted publicly yet. And the single biggest factor that determines how the conversation goes, is the quality of the questions that you ask since that deeply affects how your interviewee feels about you. Are they gonna forget about you the next day, or will they go out of their way and introduce you to their contacts, thereby expanding your network and perhaps even vouch for you, once position does open up. In this video, I'm gonna share three types of questions you wanna ask in every informational interview, share two to three examples from each type and a non-negotiable question you, you always want to end with. So let's get started. What most professionals are looking for when they agreed to have an informational interview with you, is that they're trying to see whether you have a genuine curiosity, about the industry, about the company, about the role. And you can show that you do, by asking questions from a following three categories.

The 3 Types of Questions you need to Ask

Number one, tasks and responsibilities. Number two, career path, and number three, industry knowledge. Taken together questions from these three categories, show them that you've given a lot of thought on all aspects of the job and company. Instead, of focusing only on superficial benefits, like free food, for example. Diving right into two example questions from the tasks and possibilities category.

Sample Tasks and Responsibility Questions

Number one. What aspect of your job do you find the most rewarding? Contrary to popular belief, the, tell me about your day-to-day question, isn't a great question to ask, because you might find that a lot of professionals nowadays may not have a typical day-to-day and they may end up still telling you some vague description of their roles and responsibilities. By prompting them to think about what they find most rewarding about their work, you help them drill down on specific situations and examples leading to a more concrete answer. Second question. How is your performance measured? Or put another way, what's your KPI? I love this question because it gets right to the point. How one might describe his or her job is always gonna be a little bit subjective and arbitrary, but come performance review time, the metrics that their manager are reviewing them on, those are always gonna be in black and white. It's just how companies standardized a performance review process. Their answer will give you a very realistic feel of the workload and responsibilities, if you're working in a similar position. By the way, I have a Facebook Group where I share exclusively weekly tips. So consider joining if you haven't already. I'll link it down below. Moving on to examples from the career path category.

Sample Career Path Questions

Number one. How did you begin your career? This question is great because the answer will give you insight into the decisions that person made purposefully or otherwise to arrive at their current role today. You often find that very rarely are people's career trajectories, completely linear. There are usually a lot of twists and turns, and that may give you confidence as you navigate your own path. Second example question. If you think about a recent new hire you enjoyed working with, what are some of their characteristics that to mind? Again, this question prompts them to think about a specific person and provide concrete examples, making it a much more meaningful question than something like, what advice would you have for someone who's just starting out? Number three. What did you find the most surprising about the role? To be honest, this is just a very nice way to ask, what do you not like about the role? For informational interviews, coffee chats, they're usually very casual. So you can definitely ask a question like this and expect to hear a pretty straightforward answer. Finally example questions regarding industry knowledge.

Sample Industry Knowledge Questions

Number one. What publications do you recommend I subscribe to, if I want to stay up to date on this industry's trends? I feel like this question is pretty self explanatory and really does demonstrate a very high level of interest in that target industry you want to be in. But somehow it's very rarely asked. Most colleges and even companies have paid subscriptions available for not only the major news publications, but also industry specific resources like e-marketer if you're in marketing and Bloomberg if you're into finance. And because there's a lot of content, right? You wanna make sure you're spending your time wisely and regularly reading up on relevant content rather than having information overload. Second example question for industry knowledge. What are some of the current events or trends in industry that I should be aware of? So this question is interesting, not only because you got to hear their point of view on current events in a specific industry, but also give you an opportunity to share your industry knowledge, given that you have done some sort of homework beforehand. So it's like two birds, one stone. You can use what you hear from them in your next actual interview. And you get to impress them with the research you've done in a very natural, non forced way. If you found these example questions helpful, please give this video a like, and let me know down in the comments below, which questions you will use in your next coffee chat. Last but not least, a question that doesn't fall in any of those three categories, because it's a question you wanna ask at the end of every single informational interview or coffee chat.

Non-Negotiable Question

And that is, based on what we discussed today, is there anyone else you think I should talk to? I'm not even exaggerating when I say this question could be the deciding factor on whether you get closer to that dream role of yours. From a nerdy statistical standpoint, the more relevant people you meet in a given field, the higher the chance of someone being able to help you get to where you wanna be. It's very easy to see someone land a great role and chalk it up to luck. And I agree, but you can always increase the surface area of which luck can hit you, by putting yourself out there, by asking to be introduced to the next person, by having that next coffee chat. By not asking this question, it's like leaving money on the table. The worst thing that can happen is that the interviewee awkwardly laughs and says, "No, I'm sorry. " And that's totally fine. So that wraps up the three types of questions

Summary

you should always ask during informational interviews. Please remember the questions I provided are just examples. And if you have your own questions, as long as the three categories are covered, you're good to go. Let me know down in the comments, If you have any questions and subscribe if you haven't already. See you on the next video and the meantime have a great one.

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