Know Before You Go (Five Ways to Research Your Interviewer to Better Prepare)

All of us have faced this same scenario while navigating the job hunt process--you receive a call from a recruiter or HR person at the company where you applied and inviting you to interview. They give you a date and time and maybe the name of the interviewer. That's about it.

This should be an exciting event--the culmination of all your hard work searching, applying, and acing the phone screen to get the chance to tell your employment and skills story in person. But, its not always that way, is it? We work ourselves up to a frenzy trying to prepare for the meeting--maybe even buying a new tie or dress shirt to dampen the anxiety.

It doesn't have to be that way. One of the ways you can effectively prepare for the interview is to know as much about your interviewer as possible. The more you know before you go, the better you can anticipate questions, choose a clothing style appropriate to the person, etc. You can find all of this online--here's how:

Five ways to research your interviewer online.:

1. Start with Google. Perform a broad search by the person's name and company. Click on relevant links--these may include LinkedIn profile links, press releases from the company, etc.
2. Compliment your search by finding them on LinkedIn. Even though you are not connected to the person, depending on how public their profile is you can usually gather some of the following: education level and where they attended college, previous positions, and awards and achievements. 
3. Refine your search by using a business information service like Hoovers. If the interviewer is in senior management this site will usually give you details on their current position, how much ownership by way of stock they have in the company, their age, and other important details.
4. If you are applying to a public company, search for them at the US Securities and Exchange Commission site.  This can be a trove of information you can't find otherwise, including stock ownership, financial transactions, etc.
5. Finally, look to social media for information as well. Use Twitter Search to find either the person directly or indirectly by company. You can also search by hash tag for related conversations that can give you some insight into the interviewer. Look also to see if they have a Facebook profile or are on other sites like Pinterest or Tumblr.

 The more prepared you are for the interview, the better you will perform.

You also can check out our new eBook "Click to Get Hired: Three Secrets to an Online Job Search" now available exclusively at Amazon and free to borrow for Amazon Prime members.

Until next time,

www.clicktogethired.com