Informational Interview Questions for Career Changers: What to Ask

An informational interview is a short conversation with someone who already does the work you are considering. The BLS Occupational Outlook Quarterly guide to informational interviewing says these meetings usually last 20 to 30 minutes and stresses that the purpose is not to get a job. For a career changer, that limit is useful: there is time to settle one or two real questions, not to hear a full life story.

Before you contact anyone, write down the two or three uncertainties that could change your decision. Typical ones are what the role involves in an ordinary week, how people without the usual background get hired, and what evidence a hiring manager would expect from someone like you. If an answer would not change what you do next, it does not belong in a 25-minute call.

Prepare with public data so you do not spend the call on facts you could look up. An O*NET OnLine occupation summary lists the role's tasks, work context, job zone, training and credentials, related occupations, and professional associations. Read the task list and mark anything you assume is a large or small part of the job. The BLS guide suggests asking about your preconceived ideas directly, so you can find out whether your picture of the work is accurate.

Talk to people who do the work at roughly the level you would enter. The BLS guide notes that workers in the occupation usually know more about what the work is like than human resources specialists or hiring managers, and that someone aiming for an entry-level job should interview workers at or near entry level rather than supervisors. A person who changed careers into the role is especially useful, because their path is closer to yours.

Start with people you already know, then former coworkers, school and alumni offices, and professional associations. O*NET summaries list associations for many occupations, and the BLS guide points out that associations keep member directories and that their staff often know members who are willing to talk with students and career changers.

Keep the request short and make the time limit clear. The BLS guide recommends saying who you are, why you want to meet, how long it will take, and how you found the person. A version for a career change could read: 'Hi Jordan, I work in retail operations and I am researching logistics coordinator roles before deciding on a career change. Sam Lee suggested I contact you. I am not asking about job openings. Could I ask you a few questions about your work in a 20-minute call in the next two weeks?' If there is no reply, the guide's rule of thumb is three attempts before you move on to the next name.

Pick about ten questions, which is the number the BLS guide suggests for one meeting, and use open-ended wording so the answer is a description rather than a yes or no. Choose from the groups below based on the uncertainties you wrote down.

The work itself: What do you spend most of your hours on in a typical week? Which tasks take longer than outsiders expect? What does a good week look like, and what does a frustrating one look like? Which decisions do you make on your own, and which ones go to someone else?

The way in for someone like me: How did you get your first role in this field? Do you know anyone who came in from a background like mine, and what helped them get hired? Which parts of my experience would a hiring manager see as relevant, and which parts would they discount? What small project could I do that would show I can handle the work?

Working conditions and assumptions: What are your hours and schedule like, and how typical is that across employers? I read that a specific problem is common in this work; has that matched your experience? Is the role changing, and what is driving the change?

Closing questions: Is there anything I should have asked but did not? Can you suggest someone else I could talk to, and may I mention your name? The BLS guide recommends ending every interview with those last two questions, because the answers become your next contacts.

Treat the call as a short meeting that you lead. A workable plan is two minutes to thank the person and restate why you asked for the call, fifteen minutes for your chosen questions, five minutes for their advice or anything they want to add, and three minutes to ask for referrals and finish on time. Cornell University Career Services sums up the conduct in four steps: pay attention, take notes, respect the person's time, and thank them.

Copy this notes sheet before each call and fill it in during or right after it. Role and setting: job title, type of employer, time in the role. Path in: previous work, training, and first job in the field. Weekly tasks: the three things that take most of their time. Hardest part: what they find difficult or frustrating. Proof for someone like me: what they think a hiring manager would want to see. Assumption checked: what you believed before and what they said. Fact or opinion: mark each answer as something they do, something they believe, or something they heard. Referral: name and permission to mention them. Next check: one thing to confirm elsewhere.

The fact-or-opinion line matters most. A description of their own week is direct evidence about one job. A statement such as 'nobody hires career changers' is one person's view, and it needs to be checked against other conversations and data before it changes your plans.

This example is fictional. Priya manages a retail store and is considering logistics coordinator roles. Before her first call she reads the O*NET summary for a related occupation, marks the tasks she expects to enjoy, and writes down one assumption: she believes the role is mostly planning at a desk.

She asks a coordinator at a regional distributor, who moved over from a warehouse role, eight questions. Her notes show that much of his week goes to resolving delays with carriers by phone and email, that the planning part is smaller than she assumed, and that he thinks her experience handling vendor problems would count. He suggests that a one-page summary of how she reduced late deliveries at her store would be stronger proof than another course, and he names a colleague she can contact.

On her notes sheet, the time spent on carrier issues is a fact about his job, while the advice about what hiring managers value is his opinion. Priya's next checks are two more conversations, one of them at a larger company, and a look at BLS pay and education data for the occupation before she decides whether to continue.

Send a brief thank-you note within a few days. The BLS guide says the sooner the better and suggests recalling a piece of advice that helped. If the person offered a referral, contact that person within the next week while the introduction is fresh.

Do not let one conversation decide for you. The BLS guide warns against basing decisions on the opinions of one individual, recommends at least a few interviews per occupation, and suggests confirming facts such as earnings and education with BLS data or professional associations. After three conversations, compare your notes sheets: which tasks came up every time, which proof was mentioned more than once, and which assumption turned out to be wrong.

Then choose one of three outcomes. Continue if the common tasks still appeal to you and the entry path looks reachable from your background; the next step can be a job shadow visit or a small project that produces the proof people mentioned. Adjust if the field fits but the role does not, and interview people in a related role. Stop if the tasks you would do most often are the ones you dislike.

If you are not yet sure which roles deserve these conversations, MyPathFit's assessment asks about your goals, experience, skills, and constraints, and its report compares career, freelance, and business paths. The public sample report shows the format. Treat a suggested role as a starting point for your research; the people who do the work are the better source on what a normal week looks like.