Description
Often the most current and specific information about a career field may not be available online. The best information comes from people who are actually working in that career field.
An informational interview is an informal conversation you can have with someone working in an area of interest to you. It is an effective research tool and is best done after preliminary online research. It is not a job interview, and the objective is not to find job openings.
Directions:
1. Contact a practicing counselor or psychotherapist to set up an informational interview. Christine can help you with this. Just ask! If you are currently seeing a therapist, I ask that you do NOT conduct the interview with your therapist. Please find a different therapist or counselor. One tool that you can use to find a therapist is Psychology Today. Psychotherapists advertise on this site:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us
Again, Christine is more than happy to help with this! Please just ask. I recommend that you set a time limit for the interview and communicate that to the counselor. For example, “I am hoping that we can set a 30 minute interview so that I may ask you some questions about your career as a therapist.”
2. Read more about informational interviews and prepare for interview. I suggest that you create a list of questions to ask in advance. This guide contains all of the information that you will need including sample questions:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rH8ax3cr0Mefc_fIluUsgEVm0hN9fSqauFSelQefjZY/edit?usp=sharing
3. Conduct the interview. The interview can be completed in person, virtually (video), or over the phone. In addition to the questions in the guide, please ask the counselor what counseling skills they learned that they use most in their day to day jobs.
4. Write a 500 to 1,000 word reflection paper about the experience. Include not only the details of the interview (who, how, when), questions asked and the most interesting answers given, but also your thoughts and feelings about the answers given and the experience as a whole
