How is your career research coming along?  At the beginning of the month you identified areas to consider, and last week you narrowed your focus to 1-2 areas and began looking for resources to learn more about these field(s).

This week you’ll prepare for an ‘information interview’. That means interviewing someone who’s in the field of your interest to learn more about it and see if you want to keep it on your ‘radar’ or ‘dump it’.

Perhaps you’re looking for a job with a lot of adventure only to learn that it really requires a lot of schlepping and administrative work, thus you decide to ‘dump it’.

Most people are happy to share with you information and their experiences.

The key to information interviewing is to be well prepared, prompt, and respectful of their time.  Requesting 20 minutes for a phone or in-person conversation is usually acceptable.  Bear in mind though, 20 minutes only allows for asking 6-8 questions.  To maximize your time, I have a formula. Refer back to my July 2007 column.

First, what specifically do you want to know?  How to learn more about the field (associations, journals, etc)?  What a ‘day in the life of’ is really like?  How to find out about jobs in the field?  Which particular skills and knowledge that would make you a viable candidate?  What kind of pay you could expect starting out and when you’re more ‘seasoned’?

If you’d like a sample list of questions, feel free to email me at gaf@PersonalJourneyCoaching.com and I’d be happy to email them to you.

After you’ve done some research, information interviewing and have evaluated the results, on a scale of 1-10, how passionate are you about this new field?  Is it something you’d like to pursue?  If not, return to your notes.  What the next area you’d like to explore more deeply? Then repeat this process, and continue narrowing your focus.

To your success,
Gwyneth Anne

This entry was posted by Gwyneth Anne Freedman on August 27th, 2007 under Career with keywords .

Subscribe to this topic's feed.