Welcome to step three research. Now that you've decided that the job is the right fit for you, and you're ready to go for it, you now need to do your research on the company itself. When I consult on interview boards, the first questions I always get the interviewers to ask is, what do you know about the company? Now the reason that we asked this question is to find out whether someone truly wants to work for the company, or simply just looking for a job. The standard response that we generally receive is, well, I took a look at your website, what I could determine was blah, blah, blah. Now this is okay.

But if the candidate is able to tell us more about the company and even add further insights and additional information, this shows us that you've taken the time and the initiative. to research the company to see if it's right for you. Take some time to discover more about the company and the people that you're about to work for. Take a good look at the website, don't just flick through it, and then go on to Google and search the company name and see where else it comes up. There may be a Facebook page that tells you more about the social scene of the company, or a LinkedIn business page that will tell you more about some of the people that work for the company. Maybe have a Twitter feed blogs, or even shareholder press releases.

Trying to discover the values of the company. For example, if they have a strong value with regards to the environment and recycling, this might be something that you could spin into one of your responses may be something like in my last company, I was responsible for the introduction of paper recycling bins at each person's workstation. And if you saw that the company does volunteer work, you may wish to highlight your Volunteer work whilst in the interview. So now when asked, What do you know about us, you can respond more effectively by saying, I can see that over the last few years you have grown or you have moved recently into a new location, or you have a strong focus on x, y Zed, or I get a feeling from your site that you're a family orientated type of business. These types of statements will definitely give you brownie points from the interview panel.

The flip side is that if you have not done your research, not only will it show a lack of interest on your behalf, but you will also not have the information you need to be more effective throughout the interview. Now thinking back to the last lecture, this additional research is really going to help you to create smarter questions to ask that are 100% relevant to the role and the company that you're applying for? later in this course, I We'll teach you some techniques to find out who will be on a panel. The benefit of doing research on individual members of the interview panel, using sites such as the website and LinkedIn is that it will help you to gain a better understanding of what their role is within the company, their background qualifications and experience. Why is this important? Well, this will give you a clue as to what they may be looking to ask you from you in the interview.

For example, if you're going for an IT technical role, and you discover that one of their top technical people will be on the panel, you can prepare yourself with technical responses, and also not be surprised when they are asked when you're asked these type of questions. If a team leader is present, then they may be looking to see how you work in a team. And also if they simply like you as you will be reporting to them. HR may be looking to question you, on anything on maybe on your CV or previous roles you've had. So consider who's going to be turning up for the interview on that panel? And what will they potentially be asking you in relevance to their roles and the role you're going for.

Finally, another important part of the research is to make sure the plan your journey, so you know exactly where the location is, what it looks like, where the parking is, its availability, distance to the interview. Do you need money for the parking meter? Where does the public transport stop? Everything you need to know to make sure that you know you can arrive in plenty of time, because being late for an interview is just not an option. Again, in my own experience, I've seen people turning up 30 minutes late due to confusion of where the interview actually was. So strongly suggest that you confirm these details and make sure that you check them for example is the interview at the head office rather than the branch office?

I've had candidates arrive late because they've got to Google Street View, and seeing an average date, location and arrive there, rather than than the new office that my client had. I've also seen people turn up late because they couldn't find the front door to a large office building. So again, it's really important that you do your research and check the facts. If this interview is really important to you, I would suggest that you do a practice run or give yourself plenty of time to arrive early to avoid any possible delays. Later on, we will look into what you need to do on the day of the interview. But for now, I just want you to make sure that you've properly planned your journey.

You don't want to be finding an interview over something that you easily have control of