Star Light Ministries

I posted a few days ago about feeling like there are too many choices and not knowing which one to pick. There’s a really effective help with this, called the Informational Interview.

Find 5 people whose jobs you love and think you might be happy doing. Call them up, tell them you’re trying to decide what your next job will be, and ask them if you can take 15 minutes of their time, in person, to talk to them about their job.

Here’s what you ask:

1) What are the strengths needed for this position?
2) What are the best parts of your job?
3) What are the worst parts of your job?
4) If you were looking to replace yourself, what would you look for?
5) If someone wanted to get into your line of work, what would you suggest their steps be?

Honestly, if you ask someone these questions, the interview will take longer than 15 minutes. But at the 15 minute point, stop the interview and say, “I want to respect your time, and this is going to take longer than I thought. Can we continue?”

People love to talk about themselves and their jobs, so they’ll probably want to continue.

If you ask all the questions, you should have an idea if the job would be a good fit for you. And you should have an idea of what your next steps should be to get into this line of work. Plus, you’ve made a great contact!

It’s win-win.