Introduction
Regulatory affairs is a field most people don't discover through a straightforward academic path. There's no single undergraduate degree called "regulatory affairs," and the day-to-day work, writing submission documents, interpreting agency guidance, negotiating with health authorities, is nearly invisible from outside the industry. That gap between how the field actually works and how little of it is visible from a job posting is exactly why informational interviews matter more here than in many other careers. Talking directly to someone doing the work is often the fastest way to understand whether the field fits you, and it's also one of the more effective ways to become a real, memorable candidate rather than a resume in a pile.
An informational interview, for anyone unfamiliar with the term, is a short, low-pressure conversation with someone working in a field or role you're curious about, requested specifically to learn, not to ask for a job. Done well, it benefits both people: you get a clearer, more honest picture of the work than any job description provides, and the person you're talking to gets to share what they know with someone genuinely curious about it, which most people find more enjoyable than they expect going in.
Why This Works Particularly Well in Regulatory Affairs
Regulatory affairs professionals tend to have entered the field through unusual, individual paths, from bench science, from quality, from clinical operations, from law, and most of them remember how confusing that transition was. That shared experience makes many regulatory professionals genuinely willing to spend twenty minutes helping someone else figure out the same thing, especially within a professional community that is smaller and more tightly networked than it looks from outside.
The field also has enough internal variation, device versus pharma, CMC versus clinical versus labeling, small biotech versus large pharma, in-house versus consulting, that a single informational interview rarely answers everything. That's not a weakness of the approach; it's a reason to talk to several different people rather than assuming one conversation gives you the full picture.
Finding the Right People to Ask
The most natural starting points are people already one step removed from a cold request: alumni from your school working in regulatory roles, former colleagues or classmates who've since moved into the field, or connections of people you already know. A warm introduction, even a brief one, changes how a request lands and makes a response far more likely than reaching out completely cold.
Beyond your existing network, professional organizations like RAPS, DIA, and TOPRA, along with local or regional regulatory affairs groups, are genuinely useful sources of people open to these conversations, since membership in those groups already signals some willingness to engage with the broader professional community. LinkedIn is the practical tool for most of this outreach, and a specific, well-researched message to someone whose actual job matches what you want to understand tends to perform far better than a broad, generic request sent to dozens of people.
How to Ask Without It Feeling Transactional
The request itself matters. Keep it short, be specific about why you're reaching out to this particular person rather than a generic message that could go to anyone, and be explicit that you're asking for their perspective and experience, not a job or a referral. Something close to: naming what drew you to their specific role or path, asking for fifteen to twenty minutes of their time, and offering to work around their schedule, tends to land well without putting the other person on the spot.
It's worth being honest with yourself about intent here too. An informational interview that's secretly just a job pitch tends to feel that way to the other person, and experienced professionals can usually tell. The conversations that lead somewhere good are the ones where you're actually curious, and where any interest in opportunities comes up naturally rather than being the hidden point of the call.
What to Actually Ask
The most useful questions are the ones a job posting can't answer: what a typical week actually looks like, what the most difficult part of the role is that outsiders don't anticipate, how they personally got into the field and what they'd do differently, what skills or experience made the biggest difference early on, and what they wish they'd understood sooner about the industry or the specific subspecialty they work in. Asking what surprised them most about the job, after they thought they understood it from the outside, tends to produce the most honest, useful answers.
It's also reasonable, toward the end of a good conversation, to ask whether there's anyone else they'd suggest you talk to. This is how a single conversation can turn into a small network rather than a one-off exchange, but it should come after you've shown genuine interest in their own experience, not as the opening ask.
Virtual Versus In-Person Conversations
Most informational interviews now happen over a video call or, less often, a phone call, simply because it's easier to schedule across different cities and companies than arranging an in-person meeting. That's fine, and shouldn't be treated as a lesser version of the conversation; prepare for it the same way you would an in-person meeting, with a quiet location, your questions ready, and your camera on if it's a video call, since that small signal of engagement matters more than people expect.
In-person conversations do carry some advantages when they're realistic to arrange, particularly at industry conferences or local regulatory affairs chapter meetings, where a short face-to-face conversation can be easier to turn into an ongoing relationship than a one-off video call. If you're already attending an event where someone you'd like to talk to will also be present, it's worth asking whether they'd have a few minutes to meet in person rather than defaulting to a separate virtual call afterward.
A Note on Reciprocity
Early in a career, it can feel like these conversations are entirely one-sided, you're asking for someone's time and expertise with little to offer in return. That's a reasonable feeling, but it's worth remembering that genuine interest, good questions, and a sincere thank-you are a real form of reciprocity, not a consolation prize. As you gain more experience of your own, look for chances to return the favor directly: answering a question from someone earlier in their own career, making an introduction when you can, or simply being the kind of person who remembers what it was like to be on the asking end. The field's informal culture of mutual help, the reason these conversations work as well as they do, depends on people paying it forward rather than only drawing on it once.
What Not to Do
Don't ask for a job directly in an informational interview, even if the conversation goes well and an opening clearly exists at their company; let them offer to help if they're inclined to, rather than putting them in the position of saying no to a direct request. Don't show up without having done basic research on their company, their role, or their background, since it signals you didn't value their time enough to prepare. And don't treat the conversation as a one-time transaction; a short, genuine thank-you note afterward, and an occasional, relevant follow-up months later, is what turns a single conversation into an actual professional relationship.
Turning Conversations Into Momentum
Informational interviews rarely lead directly to a job offer, and treating that as the measure of success will leave you disappointed. What they reliably do is sharpen your understanding of the field enough to speak about it credibly in an actual interview, build a small set of people who recognize your name when a role opens up, and occasionally surface opportunities you wouldn't have found through a job board. Over several conversations, patterns start to emerge, which parts of the field genuinely interest you, which don't, what skills come up again and again, and that clarity is often worth more than any single lead.
Keeping light notes after each conversation, what you learned, what surprised you, what you'd want to ask a different person, makes it much easier to notice those patterns rather than losing the detail of each individual conversation over time.
A Common Mistake Among Mid-Career Switchers
People already established in another career, quality, clinical operations, law, lab science, sometimes skip informational interviews entirely, assuming the format is only for students or recent graduates. That's a mistake. A mid-career professional moving into regulatory affairs has just as much, often more, to learn about how the field actually works day to day, and arguably more at stake in getting that understanding right before committing to a transition. The conversations themselves don't need to look any different; what changes is that you can speak more specifically about which of your existing skills, project management, scientific writing, negotiation, data analysis, might transfer, and ask pointed questions about how those skills are actually used, or aren't, in the regulatory role you're considering.
Experienced professionals asking for these conversations sometimes worry it signals a lack of confidence or seniority. In practice, the opposite is usually true: someone with real experience asking thoughtful, specific questions tends to come across as more credible, not less, because it's clear they're taking the transition seriously rather than assuming their existing expertise will translate automatically.
Conclusion
Informational interviews won't replace a strong resume or a well-prepared formal interview, but for a field as internally varied and externally opaque as regulatory affairs, they're one of the more efficient ways to learn what the work actually involves and to become a known, credible name before a role ever opens. The investment is small, usually just the willingness to reach out and ask good questions, and the people most likely to help you are the ones who remember, not that long ago, asking someone else the exact same thing.