Begin your informational interview by briefly summarizing (preferably in 90 seconds or less) your background and explaining why you are interested in the particular field.

Try to ask open-ended questions (that is, questions that require more than a “yes” or “no” answer). Good questions you might ask include the following.

• What would you say is the best path to this career?
• What attracted you to this industry, your company, and your job?
• What do you enjoy most about this industry, the company, and your job?
• What aspects of your career have you found most and least rewarding and why? Any regrets?
• What are your educational and career backgrounds? What would you do differently if you were starting over?
• What do you see as possible next steps for you? What career expectations do you have in the short and long term?
• What are you most excited or concerned about for this industry/company/career path in the future?
• If you were in the job market tomorrow, what would you do?

• What are your primary responsibilities? How do you spend your time?
• How do you value/measure your results and effectiveness?
• What do you do in a typical day or week? How much time are you in meetings, on the phone, on the road, and working in teams versus working independently?

• What skills are most critical to your success?
• What weaknesses in a person’s skill set would make him or her ineffective in this business?
• What are the most valuable skills in your job? Which experiences enabled you to develop these skills?
• How do you keep skills current? What do you read? What professional associations do you belong to? What seminars or continuing education do you consider useful?

• What would you do differently if you ran this company?
• What are the common misconceptions about working in this company?
• What do you see as the biggest competitive challenge for your company?
• What are some of the defining characteristics of the MBAs who have been hired by your company in the past for this position?
• How many MBAs does your company typically hire each year? Can you describe the process? How many will have worked as summer interns?

• What have been your biggest surprises in this field?
• What are the common misconceptions about working in this field?
• What motivates you to continue in this business? What do you like most?
• What are the vulnerabilities of this business? What worries you?
• What biases or barriers to entry does this business have in terms of hiring practices?
• What do you expect of people starting out in this field? What educational and personal qualities in candidates attract you? How do you determine a candidate’s compatibility for the field, including education, personality, and cultural considerations?
• Can you recommend others I can talk to about this field?
• What are some of the ways I can become familiar with the industry jargon?

• What kind of job responsibilities could I expect with an MBA? Without?
• What strengths and weaknesses do you see in my current background?
• Is there anything else you think would be helpful as I consider this field?
• Looking at my résumé, what advice would you have for me on next steps if I were interested in this industry/company/career?

During job interviews, you should be able to reverse some of these questions to make statements that relate your own skills and interests to the realities of your chosen field/company. For example, “The skills most critical to my success have been . . .”