I am a huge, huge, huge fan of informational interviews. If you don’t believe in them I’m guessing you don’t know how to do them right (there is more than one right agenda, but there are many, many wrong ways of doing an informational interview).
Here’s a great primer on informational interviews: Why the Informational Interview Should Be Your Favorite Job-Hunting Tactic
I also made a video series, which is $50, on how to do informational interviews (click here for details).
Learn about them, do them, perfect the process, and you should get results like nothing else.