Informational interview questions help you learn what someone’s career is like before you decide what you want to try. If you’re in school, looking for your first job, or exploring life after college, you can use a short conversation to ask about the work, the path into it, and what to learn next.
An informational interview is a conversation you arrange with someone who works in a field you want to understand. You’re asking for their perspective on a career. Keep that purpose clear when you ask to meet, rather than leaving them to guess whether you’re asking for a job.
You might talk with an alum, a family friend, a former supervisor, or someone your school introduces you to. Choose a person whose work interests you. The conversation can help you find useful questions even when you haven’t picked a job title yet.
Choose informational interview questions that help you learn
Pick a few questions about the parts of the career you want to understand. Daily tasks, ways to enter the field, skills, and working conditions can each tell you something different.
Start by writing down what you already know and what you want to find out. You might like a subject in school but want to know how people use it at work. You may have seen a job title in a listing and want to understand what someone does during a normal day.
The University of Southern California describes informational interviews as a way to explore careers. That’s a useful purpose to keep in mind when you prepare. You can learn from someone’s experience without asking them to choose your future for you.
Look up the person’s current role and the organization before the conversation. Use information they’ve shared publicly, such as a work profile or a company bio. Reading that first lets you use your time for questions you can’t answer from the homepage.
Choose a few questions you care about rather than trying to ask every question you find. You can mark one or two as priorities. If the conversation takes an interesting turn, you’ll know what you still want to ask before you finish.
If you like to write things out, starting a journal or notebook can give your career notes a place to live. A note on your phone can work too. Use whatever you’ll want to look at again.
Ask what a normal workday includes
Ask about the work someone does during an ordinary week. That helps you picture the role beyond the title and the parts that make it into a company video.
“What does a typical day look like for you?” is a useful place to start. You can follow with, “Which tasks take most of your time?” A person may mention meetings, writing, hands-on work, travel, customer care, or time spent working alone.
To learn more about a task, ask them to walk you through it at a level they’re allowed to share. “What happens between getting that request and finishing the work?” can help you see the steps. Respect anything they need to keep private, including customer details and work that isn’t public.
You can also ask how their week changes. “Are some days or seasons different from the rest?” gives them room to talk about busy periods, shifts, or work that comes in cycles. One person’s schedule may not represent every role in the field, so keep the answer tied to their experience.
If the job includes teamwork, ask, “Who do you work with most?” Then you can learn which other roles connect to it. A career conversation can introduce you to a path you hadn’t heard of as well as the one you came to discuss.
Ask what they enjoy too. “Which part of your work do you look forward to?” gives you a chance to hear what keeps their interest. You can notice whether that part also interests you.
Learn how they entered the field
Ask about the steps that brought the person into their current work. Their answer can give you options to explore, while leaving room for the fact that your route may be different.
“How did you get started in this field?” lets them choose where the story begins. They might mention a course, a first job, a placement, a career change, or someone who helped them find an opening.
Follow up with, “Which experiences helped you prepare?” That can tell you what was useful in practice. If they name a degree or certificate, ask how it relates to their role and whether it’s required for the work they do. Check current entry requirements through the relevant employer, school, or professional body before making a training decision.
You can ask, “What entry-level roles would you suggest I learn about?” A field may have several starting points. Knowing the titles gives you something concrete to look up later without turning the conversation into a request for a vacancy.
If you’re still in school, ask what you could try while studying. A course project, a student role, a short placement, or a volunteer task may help you learn whether you enjoy part of the work. Choose something that fits your time and any rules that apply to it.
If you’re working already, ask how people bring skills from other jobs into the field. Your customer service, planning, writing, or teamwork experience may give you a question to explore. Let the person explain where those skills show up in their work.
Find out which skills matter in practice
Ask which skills the person uses often and how someone starting out can practice them. That connects broad advice about being “good with people” or “organized” to tasks you can understand.
You might ask, “What does someone new need to learn first?” or “Which skill do you use more than you expected?” If they name a tool, ask what they use it for. You can then decide whether it’s worth learning more about it.
For a people-focused role, ask what a useful conversation looks like. For a writing role, ask what kinds of things they write and who reads them. You’re looking for a clearer picture of the work, so a small example can help more than a long list of skills.
MIT’s career office offers questions about skills and career preparation. You can use those ideas to ask what experiences, habits, or learning helped the person in their field. Adapt the wording so it sounds like a question you want answered.
If you hear about a skill you’d like to try, choose a way to explore it after the call. You might look at a beginner course, practice through an existing project, or ask your career office about a relevant opportunity. You don’t need to sign up for everything mentioned.
Keep your current responsibilities in the picture. If you’re already balancing work with college commitments, a small trial may fit better than adding another major commitment to the term.
Ask about the parts you want to understand better
Ask honest, respectful questions about the way the work fits into someone’s life. You can learn about the demands of a role without asking for private details.
“What do you wish you’d known before starting?” gives the person room to name something useful. They may talk about the pace, the learning curve, travel, or a part of the role that rarely appears in a job listing.
You can ask, “What tends to be challenging in this work?” and “What helps you handle that part?” Let them decide how much to share. Their answer describes their experience in a particular role and workplace, so avoid treating it as a rule for the whole field.
If you want to understand pay, ask where someone can find reliable information about starting ranges for the role and location. That gives you a research direction without asking the person to disclose their own pay. You can check current listings and other relevant sources later.
You can also ask what they’d suggest looking for in an employer or team. “What questions would you ask if you were starting out today?” lets them share what they now know to notice.
As you compare answers, keep your own interests in view. Choosing goals that fit your life can help you name what matters to you. Someone can love a career that you decide to leave off your list.
Give the conversation a clear beginning and ending
When you ask to meet, explain who you are, what you want to learn, and how much time you’re asking for. A short message makes it easier for the person to see whether they can help.
You could write, “Hi, I’m exploring work in your field after college. I’d like to learn what your role involves and how you got started. Would you have twenty minutes for a phone or video call sometime in the next few weeks?” Adapt it to your connection with them.
At the start, thank them and check how much time they have. Keep an eye on the agreed time as you talk. If you want to take notes or record anything, ask first and respect their answer.
Near the end, ask, “What would you suggest I learn about next?” You can also ask if there’s another kind of role you should explore. If they offer an introduction, check what they’re comfortable sharing and how they’d like you to follow up.
Afterward, send a thank-you that names something you learned. Save the notes you want to use and choose a next step. That might be reading about a role, speaking with someone in a different workplace, or trying a small project that gives you more information.
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