Your First Conversation

You’ve found their email, you’ve reached out, they’ve responded, and you’ve scheduled a time. What do you now?

Networking meetings (or “informational interviews”) can be incredible tools for your growth and development, or they can be terrible, cold, inhuman, and ineffective ways of slithering up to people who are more powerful than you. You can make this choice!

The first thing to remember is to treat these meetings as normal human interactions with normal human people. It’s okay to be funny and warm! You should be professional and polite, but you can also bring your full self to these conversations.

You essentially have two goals for these meetings: you want to expand your network (in a way that will hopefully lead to a job) and get a clearer sense of the field you’re thinking of working in. My view is that if you come into the meeting prioritizing getting advice over seeming impressive, you will do much better on both fronts.

This isn’t super complicated: imagine, in a few years, two students reach out to you to ask for advice on the job hunt:

One spends half an hour telling you how cool they are: they talk through their whole CV, learn about their whole life story, and hear about all their skills and accomplishments.

The other spends the meeting asking you a series of thoughtful questions about your job and what a career in politics can look like. You leave the meeting with a sense of who the second student is and what matters to them, but you don’t know about every single award they’ve won or job they’ve held.

The first student left the coffee meeting with next to no new information, and the meeting was basically a waste of time. They already knew their own life story! The second student, on the other hand, left with a few nuggets of wisdom that they can take with them on the job hunt.

Now, imagine that, in a week or two, a colleague mentions that they’re hiring for an entry-level position and looking for awesome candidates. Who would you introduce them to?

Probably the second student! Likeability matters a lot more than credentials, and people love giving advice. No one wants to sit through a 30 minute sales pitch. Instead, they want to feel useful and share what they’ve learned. Don’t downplay your accomplishments, but, instead of trying to wow someone by talking through every item on your CV, impress them with smart, thoughtful, and genuine questions. What are you actually curious about? Imagine you’d never see this person again -- what do you want to know?

As a general rule, you should do ~30% of the talking in these meetings, and you should mostly be asking questions. This ends up being a win-win: you come across as a lot more likable and you end up learning a lot!

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t talk about yourself at all. It’s helpful to give the person you’re connecting with some context. Who are you? Why are you here? Why do you care? In 2-3 minutes, tell them your story of self! You should have a brief “elevator pitch” about yourself prepared, since you’ll need it a lot. The idea is that if you get in an elevator with someone, you should be able to finish the entire story by the time they get off the elevator a minute or two later. Try practicing this with a timer; you’ll be surprised at how short you need to make it.

Marshall Ganz’s framework⁠

is a great start if this seems scary.

The best preparation for these meetings is to think about what you want to learn. What are you actually curious about? Do you want general advice on the job hunt? Are you interested in how a data analyst or political strategist spends their time?

Start by making a list of questions you want to ask. Don’t memorize this and don’t bring it into the meeting; just use it as a brainstorming tool. Do a little bit of research on the person and the organization they work for. Don’t ask any questions you could easily find answers to on Google.

Some examples of bad questions:

I saw that you’re working for the Center for American Progress. What do you do there? (you should know this already! If you don’t why did you reach out?)

What does Swing Left do? (Very easily Googleable)

How much do you make? (Too invasive for most people -- it’s okay to ask something like “Do you have a sense of how much entry-level staffers at labor unions generally make?”)

Can you find me a job? (They know you are looking for work. You don’t need to drill it in)

Some examples of good questions (not an exhaustive list):

How do you spend a typical workday?

What does success look like in your job?

How did you end up in your current position?

What do you like about your work? What do you find frustrating?

If you weren’t working at _________, where would you like to be?

What advice would you give to your 20 year old self? What should I be doing to get where you are?

At the end of the meeting, it’s totally okay to ask something along the lines of “Is there anyone else I should be talking to?” or “Do you know anyone else who could offer advice on XXX?” or “I’m really interested in working for a labor union. Do you know anyone in an analytics role at a union who I could talk to?” This is a great initial way of expanding your network.

Keep these meetings to 20-30 minutes. If they want to chat longer, that’s awesome, but you shouldn’t expect to take up more of their time.

Finally, and most importantly, be on time. This really, really matters. Whether it’s on Zoom or in person, people hate to be kept waiting. Almost everyone you’ll meet with is extraordinarily busy, and this is the most optional thing on their calendar. They are chatting with you purely because they want to help you. They probably have a million things on their to-do list and they almost certainly don’t see their families as much as they want to or sleep enough. So if you are late, they will take that to mean that you do not value their time -- or them. Don’t be. Have your headphones plugged in, your phone or laptop charged, and the Zoom link pulled up at least 5 minutes beforehand so all you have to do is press join.

Following Up and Activating Networks

Once you’ve had a great meeting with a new person, there are a few things you can do to keep them engaged and sustain the relationship.

After the meeting (wait a few hours, but no more than 24 hours), you need to send them a short thank you note. The most common way to do this is to just respond to the last email that was sent in setting up the meeting with a thank you. It can be brief and friendly, but it should be something. Make sure to specifically reference something you learned from the conversation: you don’t want it to feel like a form letter. I think the format / advice for a cold outreach email generally holds here.

Next, add them on LinkedIn. In the connection request, you can send them a nice note saying something like “Great meeting you today! Would love to stay in touch.”

If you’re applying to a job at their organization, send them a note to let them know! They’ll usually be flattered (it means that you were inspired enough by the convo that you want to work with them!) and they usually have some sway, even if the role you’re applying for isn’t on their team directly.

If you’re applying somewhere else, you could try a couple strategies:

You could reach back out to a few of the folks you had networking conversations with to share a short update on life and the job hunt, and say something like “I’ve applied to roles at BerlinRosen, SKDK, GSG, Rising Tide, and MissionWired. If you know anyone at any of those firms, I’d appreciate it if you could put a word in!”

You could take a more targeted approach by searching for the firms on Linkedin, seeing if you have any mutual connections with senior staffers there, and reaching out to the mutuals with a note.

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