Search Strategies Part 3: Networking

2026 Updates to this episode:

• Amy and Susan discuss "Success Stories." These are now called "Student Stories" on our website - where you can also learn about our Career Engagement Process.
• Also check out our recent blog on informational interviewing. 
• Handshake is the place to find opportunities and events. 

Networking! Just the idea provokes dread in the most steadfast of hearts, but networking isn't mingling. The core tool in networking is informational interviewing, which is almost like a qualitative research tool you deploy to figure out what you want to do and how to get there. It pays big dividends on the search--taking you from being reactive (looking at listings) to being proactive (hearing about positions before they are listed). In our method, your target list and networking list go together. Listen in and learn more! And remember... 

"Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What's important is the action. You don't have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow." the late, great Carrie Fisher

Transcript

[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.]
Hello everyone. This is Amber Brown and Ahmer Ursani.

We are both GPSI career coaches, and we're here to provide a few updates and a refresh on our existing podcast series.

So some of our episodes use our old community name, but we want to clarify that our new community name is Government Policy and Social Impact.

Or you can just say GPSi, see for short.

We want to highlight our updated career engagement model as well in this episode because it helps us contextualize the work we do.

So I'm going to give you a brief overview of the stages, and you can see more in the show notes.

So it starts with understanding yourself, which is super important for reflection and visioning possibilities, preparing to the actual search and apply process.

And then finally when you're actually engaging in your opportunity.

So you may also hear in some of our older podcast episodes, a reference to what's called a live chat. 

And we wanted to make sure you noted that it's no longer in existence, but instead we have a different resource,

which we have various in-person drop in hours that we had that are GPS specific throughout the week.

And there was also a time that you can meet our career peers. Um, available Monday through Friday for on demand support.

Additionally, we no longer use canvas. All the resources have migrated to our GPS website.

A link again will be provided in the show notes. And our last technology update is we want to discuss Career link.

It's now handshake. So in handshake it's our one stop shop for career related events job and um, job and internship postings.

You can schedule your appointments there and more. And to close, we want to state that our annual Career expo now has a GPS specific focus day,

where employers from our industry come to you to discuss career options.

This, along with our annual Changemaker Summit, which brings local nonprofits to campus, helps you see how you can make an impact on our world.

So thank you so much for listening to this. If you have any additional questions, feel free to reach out to anyone on our team.

Hope you're having a good day. See you. Yeah. Thank you.

Welcome to the GPP podcast for budding politicos, policy wonks and advocates.

I'm Amy Heath Carpentier, and I'm Susan Craig.

As career counselors in Washington University's Career Center and co-directors of the Government and Policy Work Group.

We walk alongside burgeoning policy wonks, politicos and change agents as they chart their paths to change the world.

This podcast is for you if you're interested in hearing tips and techniques that will position you to find your place in the fast moving,

mission driven world of politics, policy, and advocacy.

Today we're going to talk about networking, and this is a very stressful topic for many people.

But it doesn't have to be. Remember to listen to episode three to see how this fits into the overall strategy.

So what is networking? Most people think about being at a party and having to mingle.

I'm really extroverted and I do not like mingling randomly at a party, but mingling is only one tactic for networking.

There are many more and we're going to talk about those today.

So if you've listened to episode three already, you're familiar with some of these different types of networking.

So if you haven't listened to it, I say go back and just have a quick listen and we'll talk a little bit more in depth about those things.

The first thing we talked about was lateral versus vertical networking,

which is just a fancy word for talking to your peers versus talking to people that aren't your peers.

Um, and I think the easiest way to start the networking process is to start with people who are closest to you, which is your peers,

and a great way to a great resource for finding people that will be willing to do that is success stories,

which you can find on the Career Center website.

And it's got people who've done internships previously who are current students, and they're willing to talk to you about those internships.

So it's pretty low hanging fruit. You can just find them and email them directly and they'll be willing to talk.

So passive versus active networking is something to keep in mind.

We've covered this a bit before as well.

Passive networking would be things like looking people up on LinkedIn who are doing things you're interested in doing in the future,

and seeing where they worked in the past, seeing where they interned.

Attending a GPP session with an alum might be a form of passive networking,

as well as attending virtual events from maybe a think tank or going to a social media,

you know, live stream, or watching the Twitter account or listening to a podcast.

These are all passive ways of networking, and there are so many of those virtual events happening.

Pretty much every event at a think tank has gone virtual now, and they're open to everybody,

and there's just a wealth of opportunities available right now that I feel like we should take advantage of.

Exactly. And you don't have to want to be a think tank or to do that.

Remember that the people who attend those events are Hill staffers, people from professional organizations, etc. that's who those are aimed for.

So if you're thinking about anything on the hill, you know, and you're thinking maybe,

oh, I'm interested in ad policy, but I don't want to be in the think tank.

I don't want to do straight research. You would probably attend those events anyway, so you might as well get started by,

you know, tuning in to these virtual events and seeing what the kind of hot topics are.

So today we're going to focus more on active networking.

And the main tactic we're going to talk about is informational interviewing, which is a very specific form of networking.

So let's start by saying what an informational interview is not. It is not you finding someone and then asking them for a job.

It's really it's also not about asking them, you know, sensitive, personal questions like how much money they make or how they got their job.

It's really about you asking to hear their story.

You want to hear how they got where they're at, what sorts of decisions they came to along the way, and how they decided them.

It's really you asking people to tell their story. And if you if you frame it that way,

it's much less intimidating because people love to talk about themselves and they'll be flattered because that you find them interesting.

So if you find someone genuinely interesting, um, and you want to talk to them, asking them for informational interview is is the way to go.

And also, you're learning how to frame your own narrative. You're helping them with their narrative.

The, you know, most popular in interview question is tell me about yourself.

And you're basically asking them that in a very specific way.

So they're practicing answering that question and framing their narrative.

And you get to hear someone doing that. And it's through those examples that you get better at doing the exact same thing.

The other reason that you want to get started with informational interviewing is that most of the internships and jobs in the field are real time,

higher positions. This means that they hire you closer to when they need you, even for the internships.

And so though you can do a little, little bit of actual searching and applying before,

it's usually something that's going to happen after the networking, which is more natural anyway because it feels better, don't you think?

I mean, I think asking for an informational interview when a job position is already open or the internship is open doesn't feel as genuine.

Exactly. It just feels kind of like the only reason you're talking to them is because you sent in this, this, um, application.

So thinking about it, fitting into the assess and explore stages, we talked a little bit about this in episode two,

the four stages of career development assess, explore, search and launch.

And if you think of informational interviewing as a qualitative research tool to

figuring out what you want to do with the assess and exploring your options,

then it happens to be less intimidating because you realize it's just figuring out what you want to do, and it's more genuine.

It just happens to have a huge impact on your search and your ability to actually land a job.

Um, the other thing, though, to remember is that this can turn the informational interview,

can turn on a dime occasionally, and the higher up the person you're talking to, the more likely it's going to go there.

So one of the and when I mean turn on a dime, I mean they're going to start asking you about you.

You know, you're there to talk about them. And they're going to say, you know, well where do you want to work.

Show me your target list, which is why you should never go into an informational interview without a target list you can share easily.

It helps them help you network because they know how important networking is in our field.

That's a good point. So you want to go in.

You want to frame it as being an opportunity to hear their story, but you got to be ready to tell your story as well.

So let's talk about who we can do this with. Susan. Yeah.

Who should we be informational interviewing with?

So we've talked about this a couple of times already, but you definitely should be talking to your friends and fellow students.

I think, uh, we sometimes fail to appreciate how amazing the people are that are around us or what they've done professionally.

We think of them just as fellow students in a class.

Um, but oftentimes they've also done things that are interesting and would appeal to us in a more professional environment.

So start there. And then from there, I'd say, um, you know, think about professors or think about maybe your, your friends parents.

That's another place that we wouldn't we don't think of our friends parents as being, um, opportunities for networking.

But once you start to kind of think about your own personal network in a professional way,

there's often some interesting people out there that you haven't really thought of in that way before.

And one thing that I would say about that is the data suggests that it's our looser connections that actually help us.

It's not. You know, in in my relationship with Susan, it wouldn't be Susan who would help me get a position.

It would be who Susan knows. It's not actually the direct connection.

So it's that second to third connection. So that's what you're going for.

Right.

So your aunt and uncle might have some interesting connections that you haven't really thought about or known about before, but it's worth exploring.

And this is a great way to again motivate family.

Yeah. Maybe asking you, what are you doing around break to get your internship going?

You know, it's a great way to get them moving. And then I think the richest target is the alumni network, I think.

Um, especially in this space. So students who are alums of the government and Policy Work group, uh, have leveraged alums before them.

And if you were to reach out to them, they will, um,

certainly be open to helping out because someone helped them out when they were in the same situation, which is why we tend to,

um, really prioritize recent alums as being kind of the sweet spot for networking because they,

first of all, they can remember what it feels like to be in your shoes. They are sympathetic to that situation.

And then they're also really, you know, they they've just been through the hiring process, the internship process, the moving to D.C., perhaps.

So they've got a lot of really valuable insights that they can share with you that that's really pertinent to your search.

And I know some students really want to aspire to talk to those, like higher ranking alumni,

to the people who might be more powerful or who are in positions to actually do the hiring.

But those people aren't always really knowledgeable about what the hiring situation looks like, or they're just a little more intimidating.

Their schedule is more packed, and they may not have the same level of sympathy or empathy with you that the recent alums might have.

So that's why we always tend to to seek out those recent alums that have the most in common with you.

Not that we haven't had alum have really crazy informational interviews.

I mean, we have prepped people for some high level, you know, informational interviews in the past, but the the 2025,

30 year old is going to be much more helpful because they actually are the ones often doing the hiring almost always for the interns.

Right. And many times for their own positions when they move on.

So it really is, you know, a situation where the younger people are probably doing that work.

The government and policy workgroups been around since 2012. So there's a really big group of loves to draw.

It's an amazing group. Yeah. So the other way place to look would be, you know, your clubs at Washu.

Like, you can search the Washu alumni network for Washu Political Review, or your sorority may have its own.

Yeah, I think think broadly about your your networks and how they might fit into the.

I know we don't always think of them in this way, but, you know, once you kind of put that professional lens to it,

I think there's a lot that you can discern from that environment. So how do you schedule this thing?

Um, so the first thing you would want to do is you got to find your people.

So we've talked about that. So the second thing is deciding how you're going to reach out.

I always recommend when you find someone on LinkedIn, for example, that you also do an email search on Google or whatever your browser is.

Do a search and see if you can find their direct email.

Because many people have forward facing positions where, you know, on a nonprofit, they're going to list their the people who work for them.

If they're smaller, try to get the email and the LinkedIn and then go with the connection.

On LinkedIn you can hit connect, but always add a note.

Don't just randomly connect because even I won't connect to people I don't know,

even if they're Washu students, because I don't I don't know them yet. Right.

So you need to go ahead and put a note in there and say why you're connecting to them.

And that's a good place to put a short. You know, I'm so-and-so from Washu, I'm graduating and such and such.

And I see that you're working in such, or you worked at such and such.

After graduation, I'd love to talk to you and get some advice on how to find positions like that or something.

And if your LinkedIn profile is, and we'll probably have to do a future episode on this topic.

But if you have a LinkedIn profile that reflects you know your interests and your experiences, then they will go to that.

They will. They'll look at that. And and if it looks, you know, if they if there's a reason why you would be you have a mutual interest in something,

it will become pretty clear to them. And that will also encourage them to make the connection.

So you could also say something like, I, you know, you're an international and area studies major, I am too.

I've got a couple broad interests, but I'm interested in how you decided to go into international development consulting.

You know, like those are the kinds of intros.

And if you're looking for examples, there's a great handout that will link in the show notes that gives examples of what to say in that connection,

and then follow up with an email if you can get it.

I think it's really helpful because sometimes, particularly in these times, people are not on LinkedIn every day.

Right. You need to give them plenty of time to get back to you.

I have times when I connect to people for students, alum, for students that I don't hear for two,

three, four weeks because I just started on LinkedIn that often. You can sometimes figure that out.

You know, if they have over 500 connections, you might conclude that they probably are on LinkedIn fairly frequently and they're going to respond.

But if they're not, then, you know, if you only have 100 something connections, then the email is just the better way to reach them.

The other way you can do this is if you don't hear it a little bit, write an email, see if you have a second connection to the person.

So. So say Susan had a connection.

I'm connected to Susan, and Susan has a connection to someone I want to talk to.

I could write an email to the person I want to talk to, the target.

And just very short, sweet, whatever.

And I could then write an email to Susan explaining why I want to talk to this person

and asking if if Susan feels comfortable forwarding the email on to that person.

Don't directly ask for the email. That actually sets up a whole different set of things in the person's mind.

Do I know this person well enough? Can would this would the target person be upset if I shared their email with this person?

If you send them an email that they can send on that eliminates that whole discussion, it's just, oh yeah, okay, I can send this to this person.

You know, Susan's friend will just not respond or not whatever if they don't want to talk, right?

Yep. So that's a great quick way to do it.

And in your email you need to explain why you want to talk to them.

It don't write generic ones like kind of come up, you know, with a good a good couple questions and we'll get to what to ask in a few minutes.

But time frame ask for 15 to 20 minutes does not need to be long.

It does not need to be long. It may go long depending on the person right.

But it doesn't need to. And then give them a couple of dates or times at least 1 to 2 weeks out.

Like what you want. Here is something like my Monday and Wednesday afternoons are really open.

I don't have class. Yeah, rather than next week I can meet blah and blah, right?

Um, you should just assume they're busy, right? Everybody is busy, and so asking for something in the next week is is unreasonable.

But asking for something in the coming weeks is very reasonable.

Yes. And so where to do this? You know, like right now it's all phone or zoom, right?

But someday we may be in person again. And when you are offer, you know, offer all three phone zoom or I can.

You know, I'd love to buy you a hot beverage, you know, or whatever. Like tea, coffee, whatever.

Um, but you should do the you should do the logistics. Right?

So you should set up the zoom if it's going to be a zoom, or you should get their phone number and give them a call at the appointed time.

So kind of take the onus to be, you know, the one who's organizing and doing the lifting to make it happen.

And always remember time zones. Hopefully after this we all are much more attuned to time zone issues.

Yeah. So let's move on to what to ask Susan. So the first thing you should do is come prepared, right?

Do your research, do your reconnaissance. The best questions to ask are sincere questions that demonstrate a genuine curiosity,

curiosity in how they got, where they're at and and what decisions they made along the way.

It's about them, not you. So remember that you want to hear their story.

And you know they're often they're likely to tell you things that didn't work out for them or places they applied to that didn't pan out,

or decisions they made to not do something.

And in many ways, those insights are just as valuable as the the things that did work are the things that did come to fruition.

So don't be afraid to ask those questions about, you know, like, what sorts of decisions did you make or or problems or obstacles did you encounter?

I also think, you know, asking about their major or how courses relates to their work is is useful for someone who's,

you know, still thinking about what sorts of courses they want to take.

And then I think the I think the question I always ask people that I'm meeting for the first time is, what are you reading?

What, um, what sorts of people are you following? What are the do you have a book recommendation?

Those sorts of things that can help you become a better superfan, I think are really, I think, often lead to the most insightful pieces of advice.

And sometimes people, you know, students think that you have to be in the internship or job to embody that, that work, and it simply isn't true.

Like,

you could decide with enough information tomorrow to spend the next three weeks acting like you're a foreign policy professional in a specific area,

and just get up and read what people do read every morning and that, like, those are valuable things to do.

And of course, that's harder to do sometimes with school. But, you know, be the superfan.

Like try it on for some time. And this really helps you and show them your target list for sure.

You know, give them a refined one. Maybe you're just giving them, you know, the top 15.

That's fine. Ask them what organization you're missing.

There are organizations that you don't know about that we can't even know about,

because you can't know about them unless you're in, you know, in the know, right.

Their Smaller. They're upcoming. Maybe they haven't gotten as much press yet.

You know, but they the the people in the field will know those and they can point them out.

They may be able to look and say, okay, that one. That organization rarely hires undergraduate interns,

but there are three other ones that I've seen people go to that really have enjoyed it, you know, or this is the place that we hire.

So then you have all this great info to add and assess for your target list stuff you're not going to find when you search the websites, right?

It's really useful insight back to the active networking, right.

Like we got we got asked the questions. So let's talk about following up and keeping in touch.

Yeah. The thank you send a thank you email.

A card via snail mail is really nice. Not always practical, but it's an extra touch.

Um, if you follow any of their advice, that is a great reason to get back to them.

So if you read that book that they suggested. Send them an email.

Tell them what you liked about it. Ask him a question, you know. Oh.

Did you have any insight on X? You know, y, whatever. Um, I found that person at X organization you mentioned.

Um. ET cetera. Don't follow up for no reason, okay?

Don't waste email space. And you don't have to follow up every month.

Right. Like, you can, you know, for most of us that are out in the world of work, we got full lives just like you.

You know, we're not going to forget about you if you don't email us for two months.

Right. Like, we're going to. You can jog our memories. Right. Um.

And that's okay. Um, if you plan to apply to something at the organization down the road, use your judgment.

If the person was really warm and welcoming and now it's time to apply.

You could say, I just wanted to let you know I saw the internships opened up for your organization.

I'm going to throw an app at it. You know, just thought I'd let you know.

When you land, let them know. You know, you always want to be grateful.

Show your, you know, show that gratitude for for how they helped.

Yeah. So I think, you know,

and the advice I always try to give to folks who are maybe a little bit nervous about the informational interview is just to be yourself.

If you are genuinely interested in who they are and what they've done, that will show through and they will be flattered by that.

Um, if you are approaching it as though you're looking for something from them, you're you're looking for them to help you in some way.

I think that also shows through, and they might be less inclined to give you a favor.

So just, you know, be mindful of that. And some informational interviews go great.

Go just amazingly well. Some of them are awkward. I mean, they're not always going to be 100% worthwhile, but that's part of the process.

Yep. And you're going to in your in the world of work, you're going to work with people and have moments that are awkward.

So this is this part of practice that and I want to kind of end out, Susan with one of my favorite quotes.

So people who follow or have who know me know that I'm a huge Star Wars fan.

And Carrie Fisher, who plays Princess Leia, has this this great quote where she talks about how the confidence comes from doing the act.

You don't have the confidence to go informational interview, and then you go informational interview.

It's not linear like that. You you feel the fear of doing it, but you do it anyway.

And then the confidence follows. And I think that that's really important to remember in this moment is that, you know,

even I at some point, even on behalf of a student, I'm a little nervous, right.

Like, is this person going to get back to me? There might be some rejection level, right?

Right. That's normal. Feel the fear and take the step anyway.

And and it will make each step after it a little easier.

So, Susan, until next time, keep working to and for the world.

Take care everyone. Take care.