Research and Preparation

• 00:04 The first part of preparing for
• 00:06 any job interview happens long before you ever step foot in that office.
• 00:10 You've got to do your research.
• 00:13 Now, it constantly amazes me how many people will spend two, four, six,
• 00:18 eight hours a day clicking and responding to job requests, sending out a resume.
• 00:24 They'll spend all that time, end of a week, they've spent dozens and
• 00:28 dozens of hours sending out resumes.
• 00:30 And now you finally got a job interview,
• 00:33 maybe it's only the first interview in three weeks.
• 00:36 And you spend almost no time doing research for that interview.
• 00:41 Now, you've gotta do a lot more than simply going to
• 00:43 the organization's website.
• 00:45 Of course, you'd have to go to their website.
• 00:47 And you need to look at every page on that website.
• 00:50 You certainly need to look at their press page to see what's going on in the news,
• 00:54 what developments, what new acquisitions, good news, bad news.
• 00:58 You also need to Google the company and
• 01:01 find out other news about what are other people saying about this company?
• 01:07 What's the good news?
• 01:08 What's the bad news?
• 01:10 If you know the name of the person interviewing you, Google that person,
• 01:13 find out what you can.
• 01:15 Look at their profile on LinkedIn.
• 01:17 See if you can find out what their interests are.
• 01:19 How long have they been with the company?
• 01:22 It's virtually impossible to know too much about a company or
• 01:25 organization you're working with, but don't just stop there.
• 01:31 You got to do research on their competitors.
• 01:33 First of all, you gotta even know who their competitors are.
• 01:37 And then you've got to go to their websites,
• 01:39 you've got to research news about them.
• 01:42 You need a strong,
• 01:43 strong sense of where this company fits into the overall competitive landscape.
• 01:48 Because without that, you're not going to be able to have an intelligent
• 01:53 conversation with the organization and with the person you're meeting with.
• 01:57 If you don't have that, if you just sort of walk in, and
• 02:01 when they say, any questions for us?
• 02:04 Well, tell me about your company and what you do.
• 02:07 If you do that, you're basically finished.
• 02:10 Certainly you've destroyed your chances for
• 02:13 any highly competitive job that's well paid.
• 02:15 You're showing you don't have interest in their company.
• 02:20 Everybody, I don't care how boring the company or the industry is,
• 02:24 they want someone applying to them who has a keen interest in what they're doing.
• 02:29 Someone who'll be a motivated employee, someone who's happy to show up.
• 02:33 So you've got to do your research.
• 02:37 Go to their website, check out their press page.
• 02:40 Look at any new innovations.
• 02:42 Make sure you really understand the products they offer,
• 02:45 the services they offer.
• 02:47 Get a strong sense of the competitive landscape, who are their customers?
• 02:52 See if you can find out who their biggest customer is.
• 02:56 Who's their newest customer?
• 02:57 Who are their competitors?
• 03:00 Also do some research on the top executives of the company.
• 03:04 Even if you're not meeting with them, the more you know about what they do,
• 03:08 what they like, what they don't like, even the charities they're involved with,
• 03:12 It can't hurt.
• 03:15 So try to have some balance between the amount of time you spent sending out
• 03:20 resumes, looking at want ads online, or in person, or
• 03:23 in the real world networking, versus preparation for that job interview.
• 03:29 Most people have it really, really skewed.
• 03:32 40 hours of sending out resumes for
• 03:36 every half hour of research, that's not the way to do it.
• 03:41 And if a company isn't worth spending an hour researching, maybe it's not even
• 03:46 worth your while to drive downtown, or take mass transit to go to the interview.
• 03:52 You've got to really know what you're getting into to increase your odds
• 03:57 of acing that interview.
• 03:59 And to go in with confidence, knowing you've got something to talk about.
• 04:03 You're not just some ignorant person who's going to waste their time,
• 04:09 who says the same generic thing.
• 04:11 So tell me about your company and what are you looking for.
• 04:15 That's awful stuff, you don't want to be like that.
• 04:18 You want to be seen as a real industry player.
• 04:21 Even if you're 22 years old, for that matter, 18, and it's your first job,
• 04:26 you want to be seen legitimately as someone who knows about the industry,
• 04:31 knows about the issues affecting this organization.
• 04:34 And it's not like when I was graduating from college 30 years ago, it's easy now.
• 04:40 It's all there at your fingertips.
• 04:42 You just have to spend time doing research online.
• 04:47 Ideally, maybe talking to some people, you may even know people already work for
• 04:51 the company, even better.
• 04:53 But if you don't, at least do the research online so
• 04:56 you really know what you're talking about.
• 04:59 So that's your homework right now.
• 05:01 Pick a company you'd like to have an interview with, and do some research.
• 05:05 Investigate everything about them on their own website.
• 05:08 Come up with the three or
• 05:10 four organizations you think are their competitors.
• 05:14 Find out what you think are their top clients, do that research right now.

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