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Brochures and salary charts show a career from outside. The person who does the job can tell you what it is like inside: the boring parts, the hours and what they wish they had known at 16.
Why talk to someone already doing the job?
Career counsellors call this an informational interview. In a Bureau of Labor Statistics guide, an informational interview is "a brief meeting between a person who wants to investigate a career and a person working in that career." The same guide says these meetings usually last 20 to 30 minutes, and that some people who hold them "discover their dream job isn't so dreamy after all." Finding that out in Class 11 costs far less than finding it out in the third year of a degree.
The OECD has looked at this too. Its analysis of career guidance research lists career conversations, meeting people in work through career talks or job fairs, and workplace visits or job shadowing among its indicators of teenage career readiness. Teenagers who show these indicators "can very often be expected to experience lower rates of unemployment, higher wages and greater job satisfaction as young adults," the OECD article says, summarising its working paper on teenage career readiness. Yet the same article reports that in PISA 2018 only 4 in 10 students aged 15 across OECD countries said they had done job shadowing or a workplace visit.
How do you find alumni and relatives to talk to?
Start with people you already know. The BLS guide suggests family members, friends and teachers, and points out that the alumni offices of schools and colleges usually keep track of what their graduates do. In India that might mean:
a relative in the family WhatsApp group who works in a hospital, bank or software company
a school senior now in college or a first job
a teacher who stays in touch with old students
a parent's colleague
The guide advises talking to people "at or close to entry level" if you would start at that level, rather than to supervisors. For more on reaching seniors, see our guide to using your college alumni network, and parents can read how to arrange career talks with relatives who work.
What should you say when you ask?
Keep it short and say clearly that you want information, not a job. Here is a message you can copy and adapt:
"Namaste Priya didi, I'm Arjun, Meena aunty's son. I'm in Class 11 and thinking about pharmacy as a career. Could I ask you a few questions about your work for about 20 minutes, on a call or in person? I'm not looking for a job or internship, just trying to understand what the work is like. Any day this week or next would suit me."
If there is no reply, the BLS guide's rule of thumb is three attempts before you move on to the next name on your list.
What questions should you ask a professional about their job?
The guide suggests choosing about 10 open-ended questions, because there is never time for all of them. Use this four-part plan and pick two or three from each part:
The day: What do you do on a typical day or week? What takes up most of your time? Do you work alone or in a team?
The hard parts: What is frustrating about this work? What hours do you really work? How does it affect the rest of your life?
The path: How did you prepare for this? Which school subjects do you still use? What would you do differently?
What's next: Is this field changing? Can you suggest someone else I could talk to?
Add one question that tests an idea you already hold. The guide's example: if you believe all teachers have the summer off, ask.
What should you do after the conversation?
Send a short thank-you within a few days naming one thing you learned. Then note what you liked, what you did not and what surprised you.
Do not decide on the strength of one person. The BLS guide recommends at least a few interviews in the same occupation and checking what you hear against other sources. If the career still appeals, the next step is seeing the work up close: our post on job shadowing for teenagers in India explains how to arrange it.
These talks often show which school subjects a job depends on. If an engineer says they use thermodynamics every week and that topic feels shaky, the Fermi Concept Library has a lesson on every concept in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and computing, so you can see where it fits.
This week, pick one person, send the message and write your ten questions.
