THE INFORMATIONAL INTERVIEW PLAYBOOK
Creating a Path to Achieve Your Career Goals
by Henry Organ with Cody Sims
Organ shares his passion and strategies for seeking out informational interviews in this career/personal development guide.
“When I was trying to land a job out of college, I had zero connections. ZERO. I had to work my butt off to make them,” writes the author. He credits his strategy of pursuing informational interviews—he’s had over 100 so far—as “integral” to his career success, from landing his first corporate gig in football brand marketing at Nike to his current activities as a National Football League Players Association–certified agent and co-founder of the Disruptive Sports Agency. Organ outlines his methods for prepping, executing, and following through on these connection-building opportunities. He provides examples of effective initial outreach emails and discusses best practices to land a response. For the interview, he advises readers to take the lead and get interviewees talking with an “icebreaker” question, and he provides sample mid-interview questions designed for those early in their careers, those at mid-stage, budding entrepreneurs, and others at various stages of their work lives. The author details methods to continue to engage your targets (thank them within 24 hours of meeting; loop them into ongoing outreach as appropriate). The book includes end-of-chapter “Apply It” sections, including instructions to create your own version of the tracking sheet that Organ uses to capture, study, and capitalize on key outreach information. The author is a convincing, compelling advocate for informational interviews, using sports metaphors to refer to this tactics-filled book as “your coach” and his tracking system as “your version of watching film.” He offers a wealth of useful takeaways, including the importance of specific scheduling language (“Please give me three times that work for you over the course of the next week and I promise to make one of them work”). Best of all is Organ’s encouraging voice, urging readers to “Be a dog. Be a lion. Be a champion. You’re going to be great regardless because most people are scared to do any of this, period.”
Inspiring guidance for making relationship-building outreach an ongoing life practice.