How to Prepare for an Informational Interview

Choose one decision the conversation should help you make, research the person's work, and prepare a small set of questions around what you still do not know. You are organizing a learning conversation, not trying to pass a hidden job interview.

UC Davis's informational-interview guidance recommends selecting questions rather than asking every possible one, respecting the agreed time, and evaluating what you learned afterward. The plan below turns those principles into a concrete meeting.

Define the decision before writing questions

Imagine you work in retail operations and are considering supply-chain analysis. "Learn about supply chains" is too broad for one conversation. A more useful aim is: "Find out whether the daily analytical work interests me and which gap I should investigate first."

Write down what you already know and where it came from. A job posting, a course description, and someone's account of a normal week provide different kinds of evidence. The meeting should add to that evidence, not replace all of it.

Read the person's public professional biography and the organization's description of its work. Avoid spending time researching private details that have no bearing on the conversation.

Build a small agenda

Here is an illustrative plan for an agreed 20-minute meeting. Adjust it to the person's answers rather than following the clock rigidly.

Part	Purpose	Example
Opening	Explain your context briefly	I manage stock and am exploring more analytical roles
Daily work	Understand the actual tasks	Could you walk me through a recent inventory problem?
Preparation	Identify one relevant learning need	What did a junior colleague need help with at first?
Reality check	Test an assumption	How much time is analysis versus coordinating with other teams?
Close	Confirm a useful next step	Is there a public resource that would help me explore this further?

Keep your introduction short enough that the other person has time to talk. You can prepare a longer background explanation in case they ask, without leading with your entire resume. Choose from these informational interview questions rather than trying to ask everything.

Plan follow-ups, not a speech

If the contact says, "The hardest part is messy data," ask what made a recent dataset difficult and how the team handled it. That is more informative than moving immediately to your next prepared question.

Useful follow-ups clarify examples, responsibility, or trade-offs. Avoid requests for confidential client information, private performance details, or internal documents. A person can explain a type of challenge without naming the customer involved.

Take brief notes with permission. You usually do not need a recording. If you want one, ask first and respect a refusal; do not quietly add a recording tool to the call.

End on time and make the learning usable

When the agreed time is nearly up, acknowledge it. Ask whether they have time for one final question rather than assuming the meeting can run over.

Afterward, write a short decision sheet:

What I heard	What it means for me	What I still need to check
This analyst spends substantial time explaining exceptions to operations teams	My coordination experience may be relevant	Whether other analyst roles have the same balance
New hires learn the company's planning system after joining	I should understand the work before buying a tool-specific course	What current postings actually require
Reporting deadlines concentrate work at month-end	I need to consider whether that schedule fits	How another employer organizes the same work

These are fictional examples, not labor-market findings. One person's account describes one setting. Look at additional job-posting sources or speak to someone in a different organization before making a broad conclusion.

Send a concise networking follow-up that names something useful you learned. If the conversation informs a career-change interview answer, describe your own learning honestly rather than implying you now have experience doing the job.