...Week 8: Informational Interview Template and Grading Rubric ------------------------------------------------- This document contains the template you will use to complete this assignment. Save the file by adding your last name to the filename (e.g. Week8_Informational_Interview_Template_Smith.docx). Be sure to proofread and spell check your work before you submit it. ------------------------------------------------- A grading rubric is also available at the end of this document. There are FIVE steps to the Informational Interview. Step 1: Compile a list of individuals in your target career field whom you would like to interview. Try to identify people who are working at a company in which you are interested. This is a good opportunity to practice your networking skills. Let your classmates, friends, family members, and colleagues know that you need to complete an informational interview with someone in your intended career field. You’ll be amazed at how effective networking can be. Step 2: Prepare a brief introduction of yourself and the purpose(s) of the informational interview. Prepare a list of open-ended questions that would be appropriate to ask during the informational interview. An Internet search using “informational interview” will provide you with many examples of questions you might want to use. Step 3: Practice your interview with a classmate, friend, family member, or colleague and ask them to critique your performance. Identify ways to improve based...
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...The 15 ingredients to a stellar informational interview Whether you’re trying to move up the ladder or considering jumping ship and beginning a completely new career, informational interviews can be one of the most fruitful ways to find your next job. Informational interviews are brief meetings (typically 15 to 30 minutes) in which you meet with an individual who’s in the job, field or organization you’re considering. These interviews can equip you with: * an insider’s perspective on strategies for entering the field, emerging opportunities and how to tap into the network; * advice on refining your job search; * a chance to polish your interview and networking skills; * a lead on jobs before they are posted – or ones that won’t ever get posted; * referrals to other people. These 15 steps will ensure you get the most out of your interviews: Before you go: 1. Identify the occupation or field you want to learn more about. 2. Ask people in your network if they know anyone in that job/field who you can approach for an interview. 3. Set up the interview: introduce yourself, how you came to contact them and why you want to talk with them. Be clear about how much of their time you would like to take and be sure to make the location and time convenient for them. 4. Prepare questions. Choose five to 10 and rank them in the order of importance in case you run out of time, for example: * How did you get to this position? What contacts, strategies, timing...
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...the company’s website. Show awareness of recent news developments in the company and industry. Appeal to the ego— many people like to give advice. Start with more general questions; ask for additional contacts or ask targeted questions around job prospects at the end of the conversation. If you have spoken to other people at the company, weave in points you took away from those conversations. Be gracious, appreciative and sensitive to contact’s time. Always follow-up with a thank you. Develop your personal networking skills by using the many available resources available to you at HBS. Key resources can be found on the Careers Tab under Networking Start now. It is never too early or too late to network. SAMPLE INFORMATIONAL INTERVIEW QUESTIONS How did you decide to work in this field? For this company? What is your background? How did you position yourself for this field? What do you see as the strategic goals for the company? For your department? What kinds of challenges do you face in this industry? What keeps your CEO up at night? What have you learned through your position? What skills do you typically use? What skills are most important to be successful in your organization? Do you have any advice for me as I go through the job search process? What are the most difficult problems/decisions/challenges you face? Is there anything that has surprised you about this field/company, either positive or negative? When people leave this organization...
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...lotion for babies, infants, and even adults. I selected Mrs. Mendez for my informational interview because I believe that it is important to have more women in the business industry, and because when I am older I want to be able to have my own business as well. From this interview, I learned that with knowing that business is the path you want to take for your future. You have to be able to learn how to work in small and big business before you jump into creating a business of your own. You have to be able to learn how to work in different sized business because the environment for both is very different. With this, I also learned that with wanting a successful company or business you want to be able to have a successful advertisement, and you want to give the world a good or service that they actually want. Without successful advertisement and a good or service that people want, your business might not go anywhere in the future. When completing the interview, something that Mrs. Mendez said that keeps sticking to me is that no matter if you want to start a business or already have one you will always need luck,...
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...Radio has changed dynamically over time because the technology has changed. Consequently, this has also changed some major characteristics of the music industry. Peculiar, how when radio or radio waves were first discovered by Rudolf Hertz in the 19th century, it was considered “of no use whatsoever.” However, without the finding of wireless communications we would not have television, cell phones, Wi-Fi, or for that matter, radio. Since radio has changed, the jobs within this field have expanded. You now have DJ’s, on-air personalities, public relations directors, sales and marketing directors, promotional managers, engineers, and producers. However, it still remains that the general manager of a station is on the highest level of the radio hierarchy. The general manager’s main goals are making and exceeding budget and getting the most out of the employees. When asked to sum up the role of the general manager into one word, Calvin McCoy, whom is the founder and general manager of Crunk for Christ Radio, an internet radio station, said accountability. “Overall accountability for everything pretty much defines this job and it is a risky position but well worth the risks if performed well.” In order to get to the position of a general manager, McCoy informed that like with any job, you should and have to start at the bottom and then work your way up. “A traditional path to this top position is through sales but it can vary from station to station. As a general manager, when...
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...A WRITTEN REPORT An Informational Interview with A Financing Company The AsiaLink-Kalaw A Partial Fulfillment of Requirements in Banking and Financial Institutions Prepared for: - Submitted on: March 9, 2012 Prepared by: - I.THE ASIALINK A group of enterprising executives belonging to various industries saw the opportunity to venture in the booming consumer financing business. Combining their strengths, Robert B. Jordan handled credit; Ruben Y. Lugtu Jr. labored on the financials while the late Wilfredo T. Anastacio took care of the human resources and operations. With the good demand and sound credit, the company, which they formed, Asialink Finance Corporation was off to a good start. Established in June of 1997, Asialink Finance Corporation is now the leading and fastest growing finance company in the Philippines. The company was initially engaged in the booming business of Appliance Group Financing (AGP), however, due to the Asian Financial Crisis which badly affected companies in the market, Robert B. Jordan, now the CEO, redirected the company to focus on the promising business of giving short-term loans to business men, doctors and professionals in the year 2000. Today, Asialink Finance Corporation offers a wide range of short-term loan products that cater to the financial needs of businesses and individuals, such as Doctor’s Loan, Appliance Loan, Educational Loan, Allottee Loan, Salary Loan, Beneficiary Loan, Motorcycle Loan, Truck Loan, Car...
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...COMM107-1501 Informational Interview Journal Entry For the interview assignment, I interviewed Ms. Julie Nguyen, senior internal auditor at Watkins, Meegan LLC. I was not as nervous for this interview, because I met Julie few times before, during the career fairs at Smith Business School, and also prepared carefully all the questions to ask Julie. Overall, the interview went very well and Julie was a helpful person to talk to about physical therapy because she has had a lot of experience in the field. The interview took place not in an office, but in Robert Smith Business School, where Julie also graduated, which made the interview feel relaxed and laid back. A lot of question I asked Julie were about the kinds of classes I would need to take and the academic plan to achieve 150 credits. Her responses mentioned Taxation, Business Law II, Governmental Accounting and Cost Accounting. Moreover, Julie also stressed the importance of networking, for which she was able to get her current job position. Julie currently works more as a CPA where it is a one-to-one interaction with the client. I asked her if it were possible to work with other specialists as a team while working with the client and she said definitely. Because of a great amount of interactive work with the clients, Julie said communication is key to developing successful client relationships. The accountant must communicate the expectations of the services offered and how the results will be quantified. If you...
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...TD CANADA TRUST TD Canada Trust TD Canada Trust provides a full range of financial products and services to personal and small business customers. As a leading customer services provider, TD Canada Trust offers anywhere, anytime banking solutions through telephone and internet banking, more than 2,600 ABMs and a network of approximately 1,100 branches across Canada. Vision Statement: TD Canada trust visions “To Be the Better Bank” Company Values: At TD Canada Trust, the values are: Honesty To build honest relationships through open communications with all people interacting with the business – from the customers, co-workers, partners and shareholder. Integrity To deliver excellence by acting with integrity when conducting business and by taking pride in and responsibility for the TD’s work and decisions. Respect To work with each other, and create an atmosphere of mutual respect. Company Size: TD Canada Trust provides a full range of financial products and services through its retail branch network, telephone, Internet banking, and ‘TD Green Machine’ automated banking machines. TD Bank Group Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, with more than 85,000 employees in offices around the world, The Toronto-Dominion Bank and its subsidiaries are collectively known as TD Bank Group (TD). TD offers a full range of financial products and services to approximately 20.5 million customers worldwide...
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...I wanted to listen to something interesting and informational, so I chose “think entrepreneurship” podcast. It is well design and managed with problems sound clarity and some technical problem, some improvement can be done to make them even better. Maybe I found it interesting because of me being a business major, or because I like to hear stories of different people how they became success, and what kind of hardships they have to go through to achieve their goals. Think entrepreneurship episode 4 The podcast was 20 minutes long and audience were any one who is interested in entrepreneurship. It served the audience pretty good because interviewer was an entrepreneur and sharing his story of success, which could be very help to people who wants to be an entrepreneur. The content of all of the podcast is to interview different entrepreneurs, so it started well with the interviewer introduction and with some intro music and advertisement. He introduces the entrepreneur who was about to be interviewed. The one problem I noticed was there was a lot of background noise, kids speaking, typing, mouse clicking, and breathing sound. Moreover I think microphone was placed kind of far from the interviewee, because the sound was not that clear as it should be. I can also hear when they move the microphone. There was a lot of reverb in the podcast. It ended with outro music, but kids noises and speaking in background was almost in whole program. To improve the podcast they could have...
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...Informational Interview Questions: Mental Health Supervisor Dennis Thomas Informational Interview Questions: Mental Health Supervisor Human Lifespan Development Psych 3210 Capella University November 2013 Informational Interview Questions: Mental Health Supervisor In my informational interview, I chose to conduct my interview with a Residential Coordinator for Good Shepherd Services, a residential treatment center located in Baltimore, Maryland that services at risk teenager’s within the age range of 12-21. I reached out to this person through a friend who also works in the mental health field and found that the interviewee posses over 20 years of supervisory experience in the mental health field as a supervisor. As a Residential Coordinator, the interviewee offers support to staff in assisting at risk teen’s process through many challenging mental health issues and concerns with the hope of discharging them back into society. I chose this topic because of my desire to work with at risk children in some capacity in the mental health field. Below is my series of questions I asked the interviewee during the interview: 1) How long have you worked in...
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...For my informational interview, I decided to speak with Nancy Berman, who is a friend of mine and is currently working as a Digital Marketing Specialist. She graduated last May from Penn State University where she got her Bachelor of Arts in Public Relations and a minor Digital Media Trends & Analytics and Leadership Development. Nancy works for Crowd Surf, which is an interactive, innovative social media company that deals with connecting artists and fans. Despite their office being in Los Angeles, I had a chance to sit down and speak with Nancy in person when she was visiting her family in New Jersey a few weeks ago. I found that this face-to-face medium was probably the best way to conduct a career-related interview, as it made it feel more formal and professional than a simple phone call. While I am a psychology major, I’m definitely more interested in the business side of the career field. I plan on double minoring in Human Resources Management and Digital Marketing, which made Nancy seem like the perfect choice for an...
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...This project is designed to give you the opportunity and experience of researching a career that you are interested in pursuing. Your research for this project will be from a number of sources: informational interviews, career books, the Internet or other written material. You should take advantage of the resources provided in the Career Center, Evans Library, and the Student Counseling Center. There is also some great information available in various departmental offices on campus. You will need to use a variety of different sources, and you will need to make sure that the sources you select are considered valid and reliable. Please keep this in mind, especially when selecting Internet sources. To insure that you obtain the maximum benefit from this assignment, it will be due in sections (submitted via eLearning at eLearning.tamu.edu) with the final reflection paper submitted on eLearning. Career Research Project (CRP) #1 – Career Selection: 25 points. Via eLearning, submit the career you have chosen to research along with an explanation of why THIS career is the one selected. Career Research Project #2 – Qualifications. 25 points. Via eLearning, submit a summary (500 – 750 words) of the qualifications (education, experience, etc.) necessary for this field. These qualifications should include not only those necessary for entry level employment and opportunities, but the additional qualifications needed to be promoted and advance in this career. Include a...
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...did not have the alumni network in New York, they tried to attract more high quality professionals from U.S. top 10 schools. For each school, a team captain is assigned so that students have a constant and familiar point of contact. Recruiting process for new outside associate started from company presentation at “core business schools” on campus which worked as the first screening interview. The next step was on-campus official interview which tested candidates for ability to work in investment banking as well as for cultural fit. Then, qualified applicants took part in “Super Saturday” and have five half-hour interviews with short breaks. Chip Rae is director of recruiting at SG Cowen who had a responsibility for the recruiting process. He tactically changed some recruiting process. For example, in the past the firm defined the U.S. top 10 schools as core school, but he enlarged it to the top 25 schools because the students SG Cowen hired from the top 10 schools are close to the best students in the next 15 schools. Rae asked associates or senior associates to conduct the first round interview because junior bankers are suitable to assess day-to day skills of candidates. Meanwhile he made sure senior bankers attend at Super Saturday to judge if candidates are a promising investment banker. Rae also tried to choose people who can act as a representative of the firm and develop corporate culture. Problem/ Opportunity SG Cowen does not have a standardized hiring process and...
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...October 21, 2013 Informational Interview Assignment For this Informational Interview Assignment I interviewed my father and his close friend/ business partner. They are both work in a business of a clothing line called Blow Genes. It's a unisex clothing line for all adults and children. It includes graphic design of the pit bulls from their dog kennel. I chose to interview the two of them because I have a strong interest in fashion and hope to maybe do fashion merchandising one day. I interviewed Joey & Dave. They are both business partners for Blow Genes. Which is based out of Los Angeles, California but they also work locally in Spotsylvania, Virginia where the interview took place. Interview: Q: What do you do in a typical day? A: Handle all sales, marketing and promotions for the east coast. And I assist with clothing designs Q: What are advantages & disadvantages to this career? A: Advantages: I travel a lot and I meet a lot of people. I form new relationships and connections Disadvantages: I’m not an owner I am just a partner. So I get handed all of the bad jobs and poor travel spots. Q: What are the employee benefits? A: Free clothes, free VIP sections, free drinks at clubs and extra pocket money Q: What type of people work in this field? A: Self-employed artists, people in the entertainment industry, from actors to models to recording artists. Q: What's the typical beginning salary level? A: There is no salary we have no employees...
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...choice a good fit. 3.2.1 Project – Job Satisfaction Research Report Project Requirements • Essay format: report on the information you learn in your interviews (described below) and add a reflection section at the end that puts that information into context. Explain what you learn from the interviews you conduct for this report that you find most valuable and interesting. Discuss what you think will make you happiest in your career (besides making money). • Works/Interviews Cited page required – MLA format. • Format - Report/Essay format, with headings. Approximately 4 pages, double-spaced. • Interview requirements: • Interview 3 people, either coworkers or peoplewho work on campus, about their jobs. Choose people who take their work seriously and who you respect. • Interview 2 family membersabout their jobs/careers. • Interview 1 person working in the fieldyou are interested in about their job • What to know or ask – Start by focusing on what their job title is. Where do they work and what do they do? Besides getting paid, what do they like most, and least, about their jobs or career? If they are working in your field, what advice could they offer you? These are informational interviews. You can choose from some of the questions below, or come up with some of your own. Try to do your interviews in person if you can, or at least talk to...
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