The Exclusive Career Coach 274: How to Research an Employer Before a Job Interview
Today, we’re talking about researching an employer who has sought you out for an interview. However, it is important to research employers BEFORE you apply for a job.
Here’s the alternative scenario: You see a job posted online and it looks perfect for you. You’ve never heard of the company, but you apply anyway. Soon, they reach out to schedule an interview.
In preparation for the interview, you begin to research the company – only to find that their business practices, lack of commitment to DEI, lack of environmental consciousness, or financial woes throw up a red flag.
So you decide you definitely DON’T want to work at the company, but you agree to the interview “for practice.” BAD IDEA – after all, you aren’t likely to get any feedback on your interview, so the only thing you’ve practiced is how you THINK you should answer their questions.
Instead, I want you to do your research BEFORE applying to the company. By the way, I talked about all aspects of preparing for a job interview in episode #176:
In that episode, I covered these general areas for research prior to a job interview:
-Research the company
-Research the company culture
-Research the industry
-Research the product or service the company provides
Where should you look for this information? What should you be looking for? How do you analyze the information you garner to make a decision as to whether you should apply to that company?
Let’s start with where to research and what to look for.
While I think the company website can be useful, I find it most helpful in answering questions around the products and/or services the company provides, divisions of the organization, corporate structure, etc.
If I want to find out about company culture, I recommend glassdoor – and possibly reaching out to former employees of the company via LinkedIn.
If I want to find out about the industry the company is in and its competitors, I would look in the Wall Street Journal, industry journals, Wikipedia (one of my favorite resources), and public library resources such as Data Axle (formerly ReferenceUSA).
Specifically, I am looking for the company’s major competitors, where this company stacks up (is it #1 or a smaller player?), and what this company’s brand differentiators are (in other words, what are its unique attributes?).
While I can find out information about the company’s products and/or services from its website, I’ll need to look elsewhere to learn about the product and/or service classes it is in. In other words, it’s great that I know how many widgets company X makes every year and how they distribute them – but if I don’t know what a widget is and what it does, that information isn’t of much use to me.
How do I analyze the information I gain?
There are no right or wrong answers here – you are simply holding the company’s qualities up against what is most important to you.
Here are some things my clients are frequently concerned about in potential employers:
-Is the company in an industry I want to work in and/or have experience in? Is that industry viable right now?
-Can I get on board with the products and/or services the company makes? Are they in harmony with my beliefs and values?
-Is the company in growth mode, or are there signs the company is in financial distress?
-Does the company’s mission and vision resonate with me – and have I found evidence that they “walk the talk?”
-Is the company’s size and lifecycle phase a good fit for me? What about number of employees, revenue? Is it a private company or public?
-What is the company culture – and how does that fit with what I am looking for?
-Where is the company located geographically and am I willing to move there? If the company is nearby, what do I think about my daily commute? If I want a remote or hybrid job, what does the company offer in that regard?
-What else is really important to me in my next employer – and how does this company measure up? Are there things I can’t evaluate until I am in the interview stage – such as how I connect with my potential boss – and what, specifically, will I want to find out at that stage?
To wrap up, there is much research you can do before ever applying for a position. I’m not suggesting you go into hours of research upfront, but certainly 15-30 minutes of research will keep you from applying for jobs you ultimately wouldn’t be interested in.
When you get to the interview phase, you’ll want to do even more research as you develop your questions for the interviewers; I covered this topic in episode #85:
Next week, I will be talking about how to develop your list of target employers, which will lean heavily on the research we’ve talked about in this episode.
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