Thirty minutes can save you three months
Some things a search engine can tell you, and some it cannot. Job descriptions, salary ranges, required certifications — a few searches will cover those. What no search will tell you is what someone in that job actually does on a Monday morning, why most people leave in their third year, or whether the role is gaining or losing weight inside the organization. That information lives only inside people, and a 30-minute conversation is usually enough to get it out.
The value of an informational interview lies less in the information itself than in how fast it eliminates wrong answers. Talk to two working data analysts before you commit six months to studying, and you'll discover in advance the gap between the "analysis" you pictured and the data cleanup that fills 70% of the real job. If you decide to go ahead anyway, knowing that, it is a far sturdier decision.
This approach pairs especially well with a Career Mirror report. The report separates Fit from Feasibility. Fit can be estimated reasonably well from your answers, but Feasibility — whether you can actually get there with the experience, time, and money you have right now — is something people already in the field know far more precisely. The most efficient sequence is to narrow the field to two or three candidates with the report, then meet one or two practitioners for each to confirm the route in.
Who to ask: three tiers
Cold-messaging the most famous person in the industry is the approach with the lowest success rate. Splitting your outreach into three tiers changes your reply rate dramatically.
Tier one is weak ties: alumni from your school, friends of former colleagues, people who passed through the same club or program. Even without a close relationship, "we went through the same thing" is a real point of contact, and it lifts reply rates. Go through one mutual introduction and the odds climb again. Tier two is people who already talk publicly about their work: those who post about their job on LinkedIn, run a technical blog, or discuss their field on YouTube or in a newsletter. They already want to talk about it, so the barrier is low. Tier three is complete strangers: the employee featured in a company's careers-page interview, a conference speaker, and so on.
One rule of thumb: aim for people with three to eight years of experience. Someone one or two years in doesn't yet see the whole picture, and a fifteen-year executive has already drifted away from the day-to-day work. The three-to-eight-year band still remembers being new while also seeing the structure of the industry, which makes their answers the most concrete. And meet at least two people per role. One person's story might just be their company's story; when two people say the same thing, that's a property of the industry.
Message templates you can actually send
Your request needs four things: one line on who you are, one line on why them specifically, exactly what you are asking for, and something that lowers the cost of saying yes. If it is long, it won't be read. Keep it to five sentences.
A basic version for LinkedIn or email: "Hello — I'm [name], a [current situation, e.g. marketer three years in] preparing to move into [field]. I'm writing because of [specific article or talk title], where [the specific point that stayed with you]. I'd love 30 minutes of your perspective on what actually gets in the way when someone moves into [role]. A call or video chat at whatever time suits you is plenty, and if that's too much, I'm just as happy to send you three questions in writing. And if you'd rather not, that's completely fine."
The last two sentences are the important ones. Offering a written alternative removes "I don't have time" as a reason to decline, and saying in advance that a no is fine takes most of the psychological weight off the other person.
When asking for an introduction: "Do you happen to know anyone working in [field] who might be willing to spend 30 minutes talking about the day-to-day reality of the work — not career counseling? I'd put my questions together and send them over first." Making clear that this isn't counseling matters here too. Most people find a request for life advice far more burdensome than a request for facts.
In communities and group chats, go shorter still: "Looking for someone with 3+ years in [role] who could spare 30 minutes. I'm not asking for a referral or a recommendation letter — I want to understand what a real day looks like and how people get in. Happy to send a coffee voucher as thanks."
Ten questions worth asking
Send the list in advance, but in the actual conversation go deep on only five or six. Trying to cover all ten in 30 minutes leaves everything shallow.
1) If last week's working hours were 100, what three things took the largest share? 2) What part of this job looks glamorous from outside but is actually tedious? 3) And the reverse — what is genuinely enjoyable but invisible from outside? 4) People who leave this role within three years — what usually drives them out? 5) When you're hiring a junior or a career changer, what in an application makes you think "this person has actually done the work"? 6) Coming from a background like mine (describe it specifically), what is the most realistic route in? Where is my time better spent — certifications, a portfolio, or an internship? 7) In this role right now, which skills are rising in value, and which are losing it? 8) What did you get most wrong in your first year? 9) If you had to describe the difference between people who thrive here and people who don't in terms of personality, what would it be? 10) If I could do exactly one thing over the next 30 days, what would you tell me to do?
Always save number ten for last. It asks the other person to summarize the whole conversation for you, and their answer often becomes your experiment for the following month. Questions five and seven give you the best return on time, because a single answer lets you fix both your application materials and your study plan.
What never to ask
First, their personal salary. "How much do you make?" makes the conversation awkward instantly. If you truly need the number, ask about the market rather than the person: "Roughly what range has formed for someone three years into this role?"
Second, a referral. The moment you say "any chance you could refer me?" in a first meeting, the previous 25 minutes get reinterpreted as setup for the ask. Accept a referral only when the other person offers it first.
Third, anything a search would answer. Asking about company size, founding year, or publicly documented product specs signals that you didn't prepare. The minimum courtesy owed to someone who gave you 30 minutes is 30 minutes of homework.
Fourth, internal confidential matters and gossip. Don't dig for opinions about specific individuals, unreleased numbers, or internal conflicts. A question that puts the other person in an awkward position cools the whole conversation on the spot.
Fifth, "do you think I'd be a good fit for this job?" Someone who has known you for 30 minutes cannot answer that, and any answer they give has nothing behind it. Rephrase it as "is there anything the people who fit this job have in common?" and you get a far more useful reply. The principle of this interview is that you make the judgment; you are only collecting the raw material for it.
Three things to do within 24 hours
First, write it up the same day. Four boxes are enough. Facts (what they said, in their words), surprises (what differed from your expectations), what you'll apply (one specific action), and next questions (what you missed or what newly came up). The second box matters most. A point of surprise marks a place where your mental model was wrong, and that is exactly where you should keep digging.
Second, send a thank-you within 24 hours. A bare thank-you ends the relationship right there. Write this instead: "The part about [specific thing] was what stayed with me most from yesterday. Based on it, I'm going to spend the next four weeks doing [specific action], and I'll share a short update when I have results." People are pleased to learn their advice actually caused movement, and you've created a natural reason to write again.
Third, actually send the results a month later. Fewer than one in ten people ever do this, which is exactly why it works. A short message saying "I did what you suggested for four weeks, and here's what happened" builds a level of trust the first interview never could. When a job opens up, the person who comes to mind is usually the one who sent that third message.
Once you have two or three interviews recorded, lay the notes side by side and mark the sentences that overlap. Anything two or more people said is the real structure of that job. Take the "one thing for 30 days" answer that emerges and turn it into next month's experiment, and your research flows naturally into action.