The informational interview
By SuperdayReps · Michigan Ross Undergrad | Wharton MBA · ex-Citi | ex-Greenhill · Former Head Mentor at a Leading IB Prep Service
12 min read · updated September 13, 2026
Networking calls are awkward. You have no leverage, the person has limited time, and you are trying to sound intelligent and build some kind of rapport at the same time, in fifteen minutes, with a stranger. Nobody is good at their first one. Almost nobody is good at their fifth.
The most common way they fail is not nerves and it is not a lack of preparation. It is that the student fires off a list of questions, the banker answers each one, and the call ends with two people who have exchanged information and formed no relationship at all.
The reason the call turns into an interrogation is usually that you want the referral. Even unspoken, holding that in the back of your mind makes every question feel like it is building toward an ask, and people can feel a transactional conversation from a long way off.
Judge the call by what you control
A referral is not decided on this call. It gets decided later, usually when somebody at the firm is pulling a list together and asks around, and often after you have spoken to more than one person there. You have no say over that moment and not much over whether it arrives.
So measure the call by two things you do control. First, did you come away knowing something you could not have read online: why they picked their group, what surprised them in their first year, how work actually reaches their desk. Second, if a colleague put their head round the door next month and asked what you were like, would the honest answer be a good one?
Aim at those two and the pressure comes off. You stop steering toward an ask and start listening, and listening is what produces the second outcome.
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Frequently asked
- What is an informational interview?
- A short, informal conversation with someone who does the job you want, usually ten to twenty minutes by phone or video. You are not being formally evaluated and there is no offer at the end, but the person forms an impression of you that can turn into a referral later.
- What questions should you ask in an informational interview?
- Ask about them, not just the industry. What got them into it, how recruiting has changed, the advice they would give their first-year self, a deal they are proud of, the best and most annoying part of the day to day. Open questions about the person produce a conversation. A list of factual questions about the firm produces an interrogation.
- Should you ask for a referral on a networking call?
- Not by default, and never as the purpose of the call. If the conversation has genuinely gone well and they have not raised it themselves, it can be reasonable to say you are interested in applying and ask. Two softer asks usually work better: whether you can come back with questions later, and whether there is anyone else they would suggest you speak to.
- How should you dress for an informational interview?
- Err on the formal side: a notch above what you expect them to wear, which for a bank means a collared shirt and jacket at the least, and a suit if you are unsure. Being slightly overdressed costs a student nothing. Being the most casual person in the meeting is the only version anyone notices, and on video that includes what is behind you.
- Can a networking call turn into technical questions?
- Assume it can. Where analysts and associates run the September and October coffee chats and the interview schedule is built from them, the chat is doing part of the job a first round used to do, and one technical question costs the interviewer nothing. Expect the light end: a high level DCF walkthrough, enterprise value against equity value, why a strategic might pay more than a sponsor, or a deal you have been following. If you do not know, say so and say how you would work it out. Bluffing is the only answer that really costs you.
- What should you do after a networking call?
- Note anything specific they mentioned that you could pick up: a person, a group, a book, a suggestion. Act on one of them, then write back with what came of it, such as a question it raised or what you concluded. A message that carries something you did or thought about is the most natural reason to stay in touch, and it reads nothing like a note that just checks in.