Face to Face Interview: Research
To effectively sell yourself as a job candidate, you need to be able to persuade the employer that you are a fit for that employer's needs. Even when the job market is great for job seekers, employers aren't going to interview and hire candidates who are not a match for their needs.
After all you can't present yourself as a match for the employer's needs if you don't know enough about the employer to do so.
In interviews, employers expect you to arrive knowing background information about the organisation. If you don't, you look like you're not really interested in the job. You have to be able to answer the critical question of ‘why you would like to work for that employer - and not sound like you would take any job.
Research helps you formulate intelligent and appropriate questions to ask in your interview.
How to research specific employers
- Talk to people: Find people who work for or know about the organisation. This could be people you meet at a career fair, family members, neighbours, parents of friends, students who graduated ahead of you, alumni contacts – by any means necessary.
- The employer's web site: This is a no-brainer! Look for basic facts, information about mission, culture, values and more.
- Internet research. Note sources of information you find and gauge the credibility of those sources.
