Research for Interview Success

In a nutshell; you cannot know too much about your prospective employer.

The initial research you do will give you an advantage over less diligent interview competitors.

The end game here is to build a “profile” of your target that details the skills and attributes they possess and value in their organisation, and specifically for your target role.

This target profile to cover individuals you meet in the interview process, the specifics of your target role, and more general information regarding the company and its performance, the market and key competitors.

The profile you build will arm you with great information that will form the foundation of all your marketing messages, for delivery via written and verbal through the interview processes.

Preparation is critical to success in any endeavour, and is no different for attaining interviewing success.

The tools required boil down to Internet access and people you may know (networking). The internet will give you just about everything you will need to build a solid target profile. If you don’t have easy internet access, you should be able to get it through a local library, or educational faculty you may have access to.

Finding people that may have worked for your target, or a close competitor, can be the icing on your research cake, providing you invaluable insight that simply cannot be found any other way.

Right lets now break this down into bite sized chunks.

Starting with your interviewer or interviewers: As a minimum you need to know the name(s), and position(s) of your interviewer. And ideally should find out how long they have been with the organisation, and as much of their background as possible.

Use the internet to search for your interviewer by name, adding in moderators such as the company name, location to reduce the search results.

These searches should be carried out on Google and /or Yahoo (the best search engines), but can also be extended to social networks such as Facebook and Myspace, as many people now have social profiles on the internet, which can provide both great insight to their career and personal interests.

Another must do tip is to search on Linkedin or other business networks, as most business people are represented on one or other business network. In fact if you’re not a member of a business network, I highly recommend you join one. They’re free, and a fantastic source of information and contacts. Your levels of participation are up to you, but the benefits far outweigh the negatives.

Next to research your target role. The chances are you will have a job specification or maybe a job advert that you can start from. The emphasis here is start from, as most job specifications or job adverts only paint a part of the picture. If through your research you can add in further detail, covering the challenges of the role, the personality traits that are critical to success, you will give yourself a massive leg up on your competitors that don’t make this extra effort.

A great tip is to try and speak to somebody who has done the role or one very similar. Ask them what made them successful, what skills and attributes are critical, and what they would do differently if they had their time again. It’s important that you gain this advice from somebody who was successful in the role.

You may find this person from, your personal network, or “friend of a friend”, or you may find them on a business network like Linkedin or work related forum. Most people like to talk about themselves, so if you approach them politely, explain your situation, and flatter them by asking of their expertise, you will soon find someone willing to give you helpful and insightful information.

The research now takes on a more general direction. You should now research the company, its history and performance, successes and failures, competitors and current financial performance. You may want to look at key players or directors in the business.

And finally take your company research wider to the market in general and maybe one or two specific competitors. You’re looking for the market news, the issues facing the market, what companies are doing what, and with what results.

Done correctly you will build a target profile that will underpin your marketing efforts, and provide you the knowledge and confidence to ask intelligent and pertinent questions of all that you meet through the interview process.

If you would like to build a detailed profile for your target job or career that will:-

• Provide you the hidden insight to support a job offer winning marketing strategy.
• The confidence to delivery your marketing messages with compelling honesty and enthusiasm.
• The tools and structure to maximise your efforts, using the proven techniques of successful people.

The rest of this page is for Interviewing Answers members only and will show you how to lay the groundwork for your job offer winning marketing messages. These messages will be delivered through the entire job acquisition process via the mediums that may include some or all of the following:-

• Written marketing materials Cover letters, CV / Resume, Brag Book, 30 60 90 day plan.
• You’re prepared STAR method answers to the tough interview questions coming.
• You’re prepared questions you will ask your interviewers.

How to Harvest Job Offers From Detailed Research

It pays to be organised, and so I would suggest creating a file for all this information that you can copy, cut and paste into word or text documents that you can refer back to later.

Ultimately I suggest transferring the most important information into a Job Profile Report which you can copy or download from here. As we progress we will add your skills experience and attributes, into the profile, which will give you an “at a glance” detailed view of your fit with the role.

This is invaluable in building your marketing materials, and preparing how to maximise your strengths and mitigate for any weaknesses.

Right lets crack on.

Your interviewer(s): Identify their name and title / position as a minimum.

Try to find out how long they have been with the organisation and a brief synopsis of their career if you can.

In terms of researching the Internet is the place to go.

Research your interviewer(s)

Start with a name search in Google and / or Yahoo add quotation marks (“ “) around the name to ensure your search only returns phrases where both names are used together. For example if you search for my name type “Richard Penfold” into your browser. Even though this is a very general search it does return my Linkedin and Facebook profiles, which would be helpful if you were meeting me.

If the name is a common name you may need to add a moderator such as the company name, so the search would then become “Richard Penfold” + Sentient (my company name) the + sign means you will only get returns with both terms in the document. This reduces the number of results but improves the quality.

Generally speaking you will find business network listings for senior interviewers and managers, you may also uncover articles and thought leadership materials your interviewer has published, which can be invaluable in gaining an insight to their skills and areas of expertise. For less senior interviewers earlier in their career, you may not find so much business information, but may find personal profiles on sites such as Facebook and Myspace, and these to can be very enlightening.

Your own personal network of family, friends and acquaintances may provide access to someone who works for your target company, and they may be able to provide some helpful advice.

Research your job / role

It’s most likely that you will have a job advert or job specification / description to start from. These are great but, often because they tend to be boiler plated or written by somebody outside of the role often only contain the obvious requirements, with many vital criteria not being included at all.

So a job description or advert is a good place to start your research.

Our objective here is not to reinvent the wheel, rather to learn from somebody who has been successful in the role previously. And we gain this expertise from books on the subject, articles, forums, or ideally somebody that you may be able to communicate with directly, who has done the same role or very similar within your target organisation or close competitor.

Your personal network may yield friends, acquaintances or friends of friends that you may be able to question. Failing that fire up Google again and search and look within business networks and forums. The internet is packed with helpful people who provided you approach them politely will be delighted to share some of their expertise.

I would strongly suggest joining the business network Linkedin or Ecademy, they’re free and a fantastic source of information. Recruiters tend to live on these networks so you will also get yourself noticed and maybe even headhunted.

In terms of the search strings to use quotation marks around the exact job title or suitable variations and + forum. Forums are great as most members are passionate about their subject and only to happy to help.

Example search “sap project management” + forum

You can add further moderators to narrow down your search as well “sap project management” + forum + UK

Once you have found your helpful mentor you want to ask them questions such as:-

• What are the key criteria to success in the role?
• What are the most common things that go wrong?
• How do you spot them and correct them?
• If you had your time again what would you do different?
• What are the challenges currently facing the industry?
• How do you demonstrate and prove the commercial value your actions have added?
• What personality traits are required for success in this role?
• What book or publications should I be reading?

Company Research

You definitely need to research your target company, and again the Internet and their company website is a great place to do this.

We need a quick understanding of their financial performance, current trends, products, services, their sales and marketing strategy, challenges facing them and their market.

Company annual reports give you much of what your looking for, including chairman and CEO statements which can be invaluable for identifying the future direction, problems, and the overarching company vision statement or strategy statement.

If your target company has a clearly defined vision statement, understanding this, and ensuring your marketing messages will be supporting of these ideals is critical.

Most of this will be available from the company website or from independent investment advisers.

Generally speaking all organisations are looking to increase profitability or put another way improve efficiency. These objectives may be met through increasing sales / turnover, expansion / acquisition, or by reducing costs, or a combination. Cost cutting is often the preferred route in a difficult market.

Our job is to understand the strategy of your target and ensure your marketing messages align with their strategy.

The types of questions we want to answer are as follows:-

• Is profitability up or down significantly?
• Are they expanding through acquisition or sales push or cutting costs and improving efficiency?
• How can what you do help, even if it’s only a small contribution?
• What is their market reputation?
• What do customers think of them?
• Do they have new products or services?

General Market Research

Expanding our company research: to this time take in the market in general and your targets main competitors.

If your target has one or two major competitors it’s a great idea to do the same level of research that you’ve done for your target for their closest rival. It maybe that an independent market analysis firm such as Gartner has your target as number 5 in a market place, in which case it may be more achievable for them to go after their competitors that are placed 3^rd & 4^th rather than targeting the top dog.

Gartner and other market analysis firms are a great source of information that your can easily use to add knowledge and insight into your questions and marketing messages.

A typical interview process will involve you in on average 2 to 6 hours of face to face interview time, of which most of it will be focussed on you and your abilities so don’t let the research element take over your life. But research is a fantastic investment of your time and will give you the insights that can win you the offer.

Let’s build a Target Employer Profile

This is a simple form that when complete will line up the critical requirements of your target employer, next to the skills, experience and attributes you offer them. The form is dynamic meaning that you can add further information regarding the role as you find it, through research, job specifications or adverts, and as you progress through the interview process itself.

The form itself is a simple word document with tables to allow you to fill in the information as you go. Download a Target Employer Profile here.

If you are interpreting a job advert this article will provide additional advice, as job advert never tell the whole story…

I have created a video demonstration of how I would suggest using the target employer profile form here, which I hope shows how useful the form can be.

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