Don’t Call Me, I’ll Call You
In the age of the Internet you can conduct every part of your job search completely online. You can find a potential job through online job databases, submit your resume and application through email, and even have an interview over Skype. We are so heavily reliant on the internet that we tend to forget how important face-to-face contact is. “Job seekers…need to get offline and start meeting people in person” (Gershon 1501). The idea of reaching out to a hiring professional yourself for an interview can be even more nerve racking than a formal job interview. But the knowledge you gain from an informational interview is invaluable, “…A one-way exchange of information that will be useful for the job seeker in orienting him or her toward a job’s demands or a company’s organization” (Gershon 1616). As explained in Gershon’s book, an informational interview can be a great way to escape from the “black hole” of online job applications and connect with someone within the hiring department, “…Getting hired involves finding some social route to circumvent the applicant-tracking system” (1535). I am still new to the world of networking so jumping into this process was a daunting task. As I read the chapters for this week I realized that networking is an ongoing process that won’t end when I graduate or get a job and it can lead to personal connections as well as professional ones. “Networking is about potential, about collecting as many relationships that could be activated for your interest but are not always immediately activated” (Gershon 1603).
For my informational interviews I reached out to Julie Gilless, the director of marketing at UMBC Division of Professional Studies, Jim Lord, director of UMBC Creative Services, and Monique Anderson, corporate strategist at Grasshopper Marketing in Atlanta, GA. I chose these professionals because they all have careers within the field I am most interested. To prepare for the interviews I wrote a few discussion questions ahead of time to make sure I cover all the topics and to mimic a formal job interview. When I asked how they meet and recruit new employees, they all said they use some kind of online job site to post a position and use that database to help them narrow down candidates. Interestingly, both Jim and Julie had similar answers when I asked them what the biggest mistake candidates make. They said that candidates who are too overconfident and believe they already know everything they need to are very off putting in interviews.
Conducting these informational interviews was a brand new experience that provided me with insight into the hiring process that I never would have gotten otherwise. Face-to-face networking is indispensable despite our dependency on the internet.
Below are links to my interviews with Jim Lord and Julie Gilless.
Gershon, Ilana. “Being Generic — and Not — in the Right Way.” Down and out in the New Economy How People Find (or Don’t Find) Work Today, The University of Chicago Press, 2017,
