From the course: Writing a Resume

Resumes and informational interviews

From the course: Writing a Resume

Resumes and informational interviews

“

- An informational interview can help you do a number of things, including get the job you want. An informational interview is not an informal interview with a company where you want to obtain a job. It is a way to obtain information about an industry, the corporate culture of a particular company, or general career knowledge that a person in a particular company is well positioned to know. Want to know if it's really possible to earn six figures in a specific industry? Are you itching to find out what it's really like to work at a particular company? An informational interview will help you get the answers you seek. The role, your resume plays in an informational interview is completely dependent upon the person with whom you interview. It's not appropriate for you to present your resume in the hope that you will be offered an introduction to a hiring manager. It is also inappropriate for you to ask for a job. The purpose of the informational interview is to obtain information that will help you make career decisions and ultimately help you determine what information you should place on your resume for a particular career. An informational interview can prevent you from spending hours, crafting a resume for a company and submitting an online application, only to never hear from that company because you don't meet a requirement you never knew about. As an example, I had a client who liked to see candidates with an electrical engineering degree. I had many candidates with mechanical engineering degrees who had on the job experience and could have been a fit for the role this client had, but they were specific. They only wanted candidates with electrical engineering degrees. If they didn't have one, they wouldn't consider them no matter how stellar the rest of their resume looked. Unless a candidate planned to go back to school to get an additional degree, it was a waste of time submitting an application for this particular job. So respect the process and soak up as much information as you can and you may find that the person with whom you were interviewing will decide to help you along the way. Well, you should not expect this assistance, anticipate it. So here's some tips. Have a resume available to review should the person asked to see one. Have your resume ready to send via email in case they ask for it in a followup conversation. Know the contents of your resume so that when asked why you're interested in a particular field, you can discuss the skills and experience you have and how you think it relates to the job you want. After an informational interview, you should have a leg up on your competition because most people won't bother to take this step. And the information you'll obtain will help you to further customize your resume to make you a standout candidate.

Contents