40 Informational Interview Questions (and How to Ask for One)

The best informational interview questions are open-ended ones about someone's real day, their path into the job, and the advice they'd give a student today. Below are 40 of them, grouped by what you want to learn, plus the exact email and LinkedIn note to ask for the conversation in the first place.

So why bother? Because most students never have these conversations, and the ones who do walk into recruiting season knowing which jobs they actually want. If you're new to networking in general, start with our networking guide for students, then come back here for the questions.

TL;DR

• An informational interview is a 20 to 30 minute conversation with someone in a job you're curious about, to learn rather than to ask for a job. Career author Richard Bolles coined the term.

• Below are 40 questions grouped by goal: the day-to-day job, their career path, the industry, the company, and advice.

• Keep your outreach email under about 150 words and your LinkedIn note under 200 characters, LinkedIn's limit on free accounts.

• A referral shows up somewhere in the hiring process for about half of all jobs, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Conversations like these are how referrals start.

• Send a thank-you within a day, and follow up once if a request goes unanswered for a week.

Externships are short, remote professional experience programs where you work on real projects for real companies, with guidance from professionals in the field. The Lean Startup Co. Corporate Strategy Externship, the TikTok Social Media Content & Brand Strategy Externship and the Yinan Zhao Investing & Financial Modeling Externship give you real work to talk about in these conversations. Explore all Externships.

What Is an Informational Interview?

An informational interview is a short, informal conversation with someone who works in a career you're curious about, usually 20 to 30 minutes long. You ask about their job, their path and their advice. The point is to learn, not to land a job on the spot.

Informational Interview vs. Job Interview vs. Coffee Chat

The term goes back decades. A 2002 Bureau of Labor Statistics article describes it this way: "Talking to people about their jobs and asking them for advice is called informational interviewing, a term coined by career counselor and author Richard Bolles" (BLS Occupational Outlook Quarterly). UC Berkeley's career center puts the boundary plainly: "It is not a job interview, and its purpose is not to find job openings" (UC Berkeley Career Engagement).

From years of one-on-one career coaching with students, we've noticed that the biggest mistake isn't asking a bad question. It's treating the conversation like a job interview, where you perform and they evaluate. Flip it.

You're the one asking, and they're the expert. That shift alone makes the whole thing a lot less scary.

If you're still figuring out which careers to explore at all, our guide on what to do when you don't know what to do with your life pairs well with this one. And if it's a real job interview you're preparing for, you want our list of questions to ask in an internship interview instead.

What Questions Should You Ask About Their Day-to-Day Job?

Start with the job itself. These questions get past the job title and show you what someone actually does from Monday morning to Friday afternoon, which is the part no job posting describes honestly.

Questions 1 to 8

1. What does a typical week look like?

2. What part of your job takes up more time than outsiders would ever guess, and why does it eat so much of your week?

3. Which skills do you use most?

4. What tools or software do you spend the most time in, and which ones would you learn first if you were starting over today?

5. What's the most satisfying part?

6. What's the most frustrating or draining part of the job, the thing that makes a long day feel even longer?

7. How do you know you had a good week?

8. What surprised you most in your first few months, compared with what you expected going in?

Question 6 is the one people skip, and it's the one that tells you the most.

And every job has a hard part. You want to know whether that hard part is something you could live with.

What Questions Should You Ask About Their Career Path?

Next, ask how they got there. Career paths are rarely straight lines, and hearing the detours makes your own path feel a lot less behind.

Questions 9 to 16

9. How did you get into this field?

10. What was your first job after college, and how did it eventually lead to the role you have now?

11. Did you ever switch directions?

12. What experience helped you most when you were starting out, whether it was a job, a class or a side project?

13. What would you do differently as a student today?

14. Was there a moment when you almost chose a completely different path, and what made you stay on this one?

15. Where do people in your role move next?

16. How did you know this was the right fit for you, and how long did it take before you were sure?

So listen for the turning points. Nobody's path is the template for yours, but the moments where they changed course show you which choices actually mattered.

What Questions Should You Ask About the Industry?

Industry questions show you're thinking beyond one company. They also give you vocabulary you can reuse in applications and real interviews later.

Questions 17 to 24

17. How has this industry changed since you started?

18. Where do you think the field is heading over the next five years, and what does that mean for someone entering it now?

19. How is AI changing your team's work?

20. What do outsiders, including students like me, usually get wrong about this industry and the people who work in it?

21. Which companies are doing the most interesting work?

22. Which kinds of roles are growing in this field right now, and which ones do you see shrinking over time?

23. What should I read to keep up?

24. What's a common myth about breaking into this industry that you'd love to see students stop believing?

But question 19 is worth asking almost everywhere right now. The answers vary a lot by field, and hearing them firsthand beats any headline.

What Questions Should You Ask About the Company and Hiring?

These questions help you understand what a team values, without crossing the line into asking for a job. MIT's career office is clear that "the purpose of informational interviewing is not to ask for a job or internship" (MIT CAPD), and Duke's guide says not to "directly ask for a job or a favor" from someone you don't know (Duke Career Hub).

Questions 25 to 32

25. How would you describe your team's culture?

26. What separates the people who do really well here from the people who just do fine, in your experience?

27. What do the best interns do differently?

28. How does your team usually find and hire early-career people, and when in the year does that usually happen?

29. What stands out on a student's resume?

30. How does the company support learning and development once someone joins, especially in the first couple of years?

31. What do you wish you'd known before joining?

32. Is there anything about working here that doesn't really come through on the company's website or social media?

Yet notice what's missing: "Can you refer me?" If the conversation goes well, the person will often offer to help on their own. That help means far more when it's their idea.

What Advice Questions Should You End With?

End with advice. People love giving it, and these questions turn a pleasant chat into a plan you can act on next week.

Questions 33 to 40

33. What would you focus on this year if you were me?

34. Which skills should I start building now, and what's the best way to practice them while I'm still in school?

35. Are there classes or projects you'd recommend?

36. What's one mistake you see students make again and again when they try to break into this field?

37. What resources helped you most early on?

38. Based on what I've told you about my interests and experience so far, does this field sound like a good fit?

39. Is there anyone else I should talk to?

40. Would it be okay if I kept you posted on how things go, maybe with a quick update in a few months?

So which question matters most? Number 39. One good conversation that leads to two more introductions is how a network actually grows. And question 40 gives you a natural reason to follow up in a few months.

What Are Good Coffee Chat Questions for Finance and Consulting?

A coffee chat is finance and consulting's name for an informational interview with someone at a firm you're recruiting for. It's usually shorter and more firm-specific, and because these industries recruit early, a strong coffee chat can help your application get a closer look. Coffee chats aren't only for recruiting, though. Our coffee chat guide covers how to have them at school and with colleagues once you're an intern.

Coffee Chat Questions That Don't Waste Their Time

Bankers and consultants are busy, so skip anything you could find on the firm's website. These work better:

• Why this firm?

• What's a recent deal or project you found especially interesting, and what was your part in it?

• How is your group different?

• What does a strong summer analyst or intern do differently from everyone else in the class?

• What do you look for in students?

• How did you prepare for your own interviews here, and what would you skip if you did it again?

• What surprised you in year one?

• Who else on your team would be good to talk to, especially someone who joined in the last couple of years?

One more tip: when they ask what you're working on, have something concrete ready. An Extern project, a class model or a club deal team all work.

Coffee chats often come before the formal interviews. Our guides to investment banking internships for summer 2028 and consulting internships show the recruiting calendar, and our superday guide covers the final round if your coffee chats work.

How Do You Ask for an Informational Interview?

Ask a specific person, for a specific amount of time, with a short message that shows you did your homework. Most people say yes more often than students expect. The BLS article put it simply: "many people are willing to help students and career changers explore occupations."

Who to Ask

Start with people one step removed from you: alumni from your school, friends of family, former classmates who are a year or two ahead, and second-degree LinkedIn connections. Research backs this up. A large LinkedIn study of about 20 million users, covered by MIT News, found that moderately weak ties, people you know a little, were the most helpful for job moves (MIT News, September 2022).

Email and LinkedIn Templates

1. Keep the email short. Duke's career office recommends "usually less than 150 words."

2. Say how you found them. A shared school, club or mutual contact makes a reply far more likely.

3. Ask for a small amount of time. MIT suggests requesting a 20 to 30 minute meeting.

4. Make it easy to say yes. Offer two or three time windows, or say you'll work around their schedule.

5. Know the LinkedIn limits. On a free account you can add a personal note to up to three connection requests a month, and each note can be up to 200 characters (LinkedIn Help).

Here's an email you can adapt:

Subject: [School] student curious about your work in [field]

Hi [Name], I'm a sophomore at [School] studying [major], and I found you through [the alumni directory / a mutual contact]. I'm exploring careers in [field], and your path from [previous role] to [current role] stood out to me. Would you have 20 minutes in the next few weeks for a quick call? I'd love to hear how you got started and what you'd recommend to someone in my position. I'm happy to work around your schedule. Thank you, [Your name]

And a LinkedIn note that fits in 200 characters:

Hi [Name], I'm a [School] student exploring [field] and loved your path into [role]. Would you be open to a 20-minute chat about your work sometime this month? Thanks so much!

How Do You Run the Conversation and Follow Up?

Run it like a short, friendly meeting that you're responsible for. Thank them, keep to the time you asked for, and leave with one clear next step.

The 25-Minute Plan

1. Open with thanks and context (2 minutes). Say who you are and why you reached out, in two or three sentences.

2. Ask your top questions first (15 minutes). Lead with the three you care about most, then follow wherever the conversation goes.

3. Ask for advice and names (5 minutes). Questions 33 to 40 live here, especially "Is there anyone else I should talk to?"

4. Wrap up on time (2 minutes). When your time is nearly up, offer to let them go. If they want to keep talking, great.

What If They Don't Reply, and What to Send After

Silence is normal, honestly. Duke's guide suggests that if someone doesn't respond after seven business days, you "reply to your first message with a friendly nudge." After that, move on and reach out to someone else. People miss messages; it's rarely personal.

After the call, send a thank-you quickly. MIT and Duke both say within 24 hours, and Berkeley says within one to two days. Mention one specific piece of advice you plan to use. Our thank-you email guide has templates.

Does all this actually lead to jobs? It can, though not as neatly as the internet claims. You'll see a claim online that 85 percent of jobs are filled through networking, but that number traces back to an informal survey by a recruiter, and it referred to "critical jobs," not all jobs. The better evidence: a Federal Reserve Bank of New York study found that "a referral is used somewhere in the hiring process for approximately half of all jobs" (Federal Reserve Bank of New York). And recruiting software company Ashby, analyzing more than 38 million applications from 2021 to 2024, found that 40 percent of referred candidates moved from application to interview, compared with 3 percent of inbound applicants (Ashby).

And at Extern, we've seen the same thing play out: students get more confident in these conversations once they've worked alongside professionals. In our post-program survey, 88 percent of students who attended live meetings with industry mentors rated them positively (Extern post-program survey, 2026). Erik Schalk, now a government property manager at Rolls-Royce, put it this way: "Being able to present recommendations to the Head of Customer Insights at Beats was what paved the way for my current role at Rolls-Royce." Explore Externships to find a project and professionals to learn from in the field you're exploring.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an informational interview?

An informational interview is a short, informal conversation with someone working in a career you're curious about, usually 20 to 30 minutes. You ask about their job, path and advice to learn whether the field fits you. It isn't a job interview, and the goal isn't to ask for a job.

How long should an informational interview be?

Plan for 20 to 30 minutes. MIT's career office tells students to request a 20 to 30 minute meeting, and UC Berkeley describes informational interviews as usually lasting that long. Ask for less time than you think you need, watch the clock, and offer to wrap up when your time is up.

How many questions should you prepare for an informational interview?

Prepare about ten to twelve, then expect to get through five or six. Good conversations wander, and the best follow-up questions come from what the person just said. Put your three most important questions first so you get to them even if the call runs short.

Can you ask for a job in an informational interview?

No, not directly. Career offices at MIT and Duke both say the purpose isn't to ask for a job, and doing so can make the person feel used. Instead, ask what makes candidates stand out and who else you should talk to. If a role fits, they'll often bring it up themselves.

What is the difference between a coffee chat and an informational interview?

They're mostly the same thing with different names. In finance and consulting, a coffee chat is an informal call or meeting with someone at a firm you're recruiting for. It tends to be shorter and more firm-specific than a classic informational interview, and it can influence recruiting.

What should you do if someone doesn't reply to your request?

Wait about a week, then send one short, friendly follow-up. Duke's career office suggests replying to your first message after seven business days. If you still hear nothing, move on without taking it personally, since busy professionals miss messages all the time, and reach out to someone else.

Should you send a thank-you note after an informational interview?

Yes, and send it quickly. MIT and Duke say within 24 hours, and Berkeley says within one to two days. Mention one specific piece of advice you plan to use, thank them for their time, and keep it short. Our thank-you email guide has templates you can adapt.