Doing your research

Feeling knowledgable about the company you are applying to, about the role you will eventually be doing, and about the interview process itself is key. This applies not only in the short term to relax you and make you sound interested and professional at interview, but also in deciding for yourself whether the job you are applying for is right for you.

Before you go to any interview it is useful to split your research into the following areas, and find out as much about these as possible.

Company and Sector Research
Interviewers will expect you to be clued up on what their company does and stands for, how big it is, how it is structured and who its main competitors are. Find out as much information as possible about your prospective employer in advance. With these facts to hand you will be able to hold a meaningful conversation about the company and put company information given to you at interview into context.

In addition, having knowledge of the industry in which a company operates shows them that you have an active interest in the area in which they work and can therefore put tasks in your potential new role into the wider business context.

What to know
Companies would doubt how much you actually want to work for them if you don’t know the basic checklist below:

• Company history – when founded, MDs name etc
• Size and structure of company if large
• Sector company works in/key competitors
• Company divisions/key product lines
• What they wish to achieve/ current performance
• Industry news and trends
• Key customers for the sector and how they sell

Where to look
Most companies’ websites are packed with useful information. Familiarise yourself with the company vision, past performance and trends, future goals and current analyst ratings. If your prospective company does have a comprehensive website, you will seriously compromise your chances if it becomes apparent at interview that you have not taken time to read it.

If there is no company website, it is still easy to research your employer. You should see the company website as just the starting point, and expand by looking at other sources for research including:

• newspapers and professional magazines, who will have online sites with recent and older articles
• web search engines such as google, lycos, entering the company name and/or industry keywords
• current staff - talk to anyone you know who has worked at the organisation
• phoning the company and requesting general information, e.g. a brochure
• general business and industry sites, BBC business news, ITN news, etc

Role Research

Employers need to know that you have fully understood the job description, how it fits to what the company is trying to achieve and how it would work with other parts of the business.

You need to know the role fully in advance so you can sell your key strengths that link to the job, thus showing only relevant skills for the employer.

Where to look

Start by reading the job description in detail

When reading write down/note what are the key skills that are mentioned or link to the tasks described in the job description. Think about how your experience can link to those key skills. If the job description is task based, list the skills that you would need to carry out that task and focus on those.

e.g. Task: Salesperson need to create new business via direct sales visits

Skills: networking, sales techniques, drive and tenacity on telephone, presentation skills

Use your agency
If you are using an agency now it a great time to quiz them on what the employer is looking for and how the role fits in. All good recruitment agencies should know the role inside out and make sure that you do

Interview Research

Find out as much as possible about the format and style of the interview in advance, either from the company directly or your recruitment consultant. This will ensure that you tailor your preparation accordingly. Make sure you know the following checklist in advance:

• Format of interview questions - historical, behavioural, competency based
• Duration of interview - this may indicate the level of detail which you are expected to go into
• Are preparation materials needed - a work related task, a presentation on the company, or portfolio of previous work may be asked for
• Who you will meet - names and job titles of interviewers – helps you tailor your answers to what different managers they might be looking for – HR managers may look for different qualities to a Sales Director

See: Know and sell yourself (and your CV)