Q This assignment is the culmination of everything you have been working on in this course and your chance to not only show-off your interviewing skills but also to demonstrate your ability to network and develop new relationships. You are encouraged to approach this interview as an investment in your career rather than thinking about it only as an assignment. For this assignment, you need to download and complete the Week 8: Informational Interview Template . Provide your questions in the left column and your interviewee's response in the right column. Provide both to earn full credit. There are FIVE steps to the Informational Interview. Step 1: Compile a list of individuals in your target career field whom you would like to interview. Try to identify people who are working at a company in which you are interested. This is a good opportunity to practice your networking skills. Let your classmates, friends, family members, and colleagues know that you need to complete an informational interview with someone in your intended career field. You'll be amazed at how effective networking can be. Step 2: Prepare a brief introduction of yourself and the purpose(s) of the informational interview. Prepare a list of 10 open-ended questions that would be appropriate to ask during the informational interview. An Internet search using "informational interview" will provide you with many examples of questions you might want to use. Step 3: Practice your interview with a classmate, friend, family member, or colleague and ask them to critique your performance. Identify ways to improve based on their feedback. Step 4: Set up a day and time for the interview and be sure to confirm. This can be a Skype/WebEx/Zoom or phone interview - whatever works best for the both of you. Document the interviewee's responses to your questions on the assignment template in the 2nd column. Put your questions in the first column. Step 5: Send a thank-you letter, note, or email to the interviewee within 24-48 hours of completing the interview. And if appropriate, be sure to connect with them via LinkedIn. Note: Complete and submit by Saturday, April 25th at 11:59pm Mountain Time. (This is different than the usual Sunday deadline). Stage 4: Advance Once you have selected the person you are going to interview, strategically compose the interview questions similarly to the way you composed your own questions for Week 7. It is a limited amount of time that you are with this person so use your time wisely to gain as much insight as possible. Remember, the individual that you are meeting with could potentially be part of your professional network, if they aren’t already. This could lead to employment opportunities for you or the establishing of a mentoring relationship.