I’m guessing that you’ve made your way to this blog because you’ve landed an interview. Your next question had to be… “how do I research for an interview?”

I can understand why you’re here, interviewing is one of the most nerve-wracking tasks during your job search. If you’re serious about the job you know for a fact that you can’t just show up for an interview without some serious research.

If you never research for an interview, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll make a lasting impression, and not a good one.

When you don’t Research for an Interview:

• You don’t appear knowledgeable.
• You can’t impress the interviewer.
• You look unprepared or uninterested. 
• You can’t stack up to other prepared candidates.
• You can’t offer insight or solutions in your interview

When you Do Research for an Interview:

• You can impress the interviewer with novel insight and solutions.
• You appear motivated, proactive and intelligent.
• You can tailor your interview answers.
• You can use inside knowledge to deliver superior interview answers

When you do your research right you can blow your interview out of the water and wow all the interviewers. It all starts with just four types of pre-interview research topics!

Research the Company

There are so many details that make up a company like the culture, the leadership, their mission, the structure, values, and even their organizational stories.

What you need to do is research these topics, especially the company values. When you tie in this research into your interview answers you will be able to portray yourself as the best fit not only for skill set but culturally as well.

Interviewers believe that if a candidate is a better cultural fit then they will be able to work with the existing team better and will also be more productive.

To put this into perspective. If during your research you find that the company you are interviewing for greatly values community and volunteerism, you will want to tie in your volunteer experiences more than usual.

The best interview answers include company-specific research-based information!

Research the Position

The interview isn’t the right time to learn the basics about a position. You should already know all the details about the position.

Before you go into an interview try your hardest to determine:

• What are the key responsibilities or duties?
• What are the ongoing projects?
• What team will you be working with?
• What problems are they looking for this position to resolve?
• What are the skills, knowledge or abilities required for this position?

You may be able to find out this in detail by speaking with existing employees, looking up employer reviews, and searching through the company’s website.

Once you have this information, you can use it to highlight only most desired and relevant experience, in alignment with your research.

For example, if the company that you have researched is looking for a specific training or certification, by preemptively highlighting your experience with their desired educational background, you can easily position yourself as the perfect candidate.

Research the Interviewers

When you research for an interview, its not only important to find out about the position itself, but also the people who you will be interviewing.

People like people who they connect with, who are similar to them and who flatter them. When you do ample research on your interviewer, you can do all of these things better.

Does your interviewer have a hobby that your can address in the interview or do you both have the same alma mater? Use these details to make a genuine connection in the interview.

Research the People

The best source of information is other people! The people that work for your dream company know what the company is really like, what they really value and what the position is.

The best way to research is to network with current employees and ask for their advice for getting a job there. You can also get inside information that you can leverage in the interview.

For instance, if you know the strategic plans of the company that you learned from a professional contact, you can better tailor your interview answers to accommodate that plan.

In one answer you can showcase your abilities and your tie them to strategic initiatives within the company. Pretty impressive I’ll say.

Tying in your Research for an Interview

All of your interview answers must be relevant and sufficiently supported by your professional experiences. That will always remain true.

However, strong interviewers leverage the detailed information they have gathered to make a stronger case for their candidacy.

Make sure that during your interview you not only address the question directly, but also use specific examples of how you’ve done this in the career.

Last but certainly not least, you want to address how you can replicate your success for their company and create value.

If you need help with your interviewing style, head on over to facebook to listen to my training video on how to answer interview questions:

Click here to watch the training