Researching is key when job hunting

When you are job hunting, it is essential to research about the company you are looking to work at. This will help at the interview stage but more important, it will give you more clear ideas of if this actually is the right company for you to work for. With many businesses all offering different things and employee’s all having unique wants and needs from businesses, research becomes a hugely important tool for figuring out if you can really see yourself working there. Although it can seem difficult to find real information about a business online, we’ve built a guide that will allow anyone to perfectly research a business and build your own wants from a job.

What to look out for

When you’ve found the job that looks perfect, or your recruiter’s told you about an amazing role, you’ll be eager to hear more about the business and chatting away to the recruitment manager or agent, only to still have questions.

Worry not because this is where you’ll use your keen researching to answer those questions. Because although researching a business important, understanding what you want from a workplace is going to be the cornerstone of your research. So first you will need to set yourself a list of desired wants from a business that you ideally can’t live without, it can be anything from company benefits to easily negotiable work life balance. But ultimately you’re building a sort of check list for the company of your choosing, so that while you’re researching you can compare what the business offers with what you’re looking for.

Researching is the next step after establishing what you really want from a role.

Reasons to research

There’s many reasons why you should be researching a role before the interview comes around, but they aren’t always obvious or clear, so we’ve listed out the most common reasons and their explanation!

Interview benefits – During the interview, your recruiter will be looking for industry knowledge and company awareness, no one will hire someone whose unaware of the business and sector it’s in. This is why you research the companies presence and the sector they’re in.

Looking good at interview stage – In order to show you’re a right fit with lots of work ethic, you’ll want to have a lot to talk about regarding the business and it’s industry, if you want to be an attractive candidate, you’ll research the modern face of that businesses industry so you can appear as a present and focused professional whose on the cutting edge of developments in that industry.

making informed answers – This one is so important in standing out to a business. Don’t forget the people doing your interview are professionals who know this industry, they’ll know if you’re just muddling through with your answers, which is why researching the industry and business will give you extra support when answering those tricky niche questions.

To avoid wasting time – You may feel like it’s necessary to gather as much information from the hiring manager or agent while you have them on the phone. While I can’t say this isn’t endearing, it’s not an ideal use of time. To avoid wasting time at this stage you’ll want to focus on what you’re being told and not extracting more information, chances are the hiring manager only know as much as they’re telling you.

Ways to research

We’re very lucky to live in an age where information is readily accessible from nearly any time and anywhere, so we can use this to our advantage when we try to research for a role we desperately want. Whether it’s just 15 minutes on your phone in the morning or a session in the afternoon, these tips will help you build brilliant and informative research about a business.

linkedin for the company – More businesses are on Linkedin then ever before, so there’s a good chance the company your looking for is on there! Take a look at what the company posts, what they’re talking about and thinking, getting a good look at how a business conducts itself and wants to be seen can boost your knowledge of the company greatly.

Linkedin of employees – When using Linkedin, it will show you a short list of who works there. By taking a look at what they post about their job, you’ll get another angle on the business that really matters, that is how the employees feel about working there, which can be a huge indicator as to the work places values and conduct.

Linkedin for the hiring manager – This one may be trickier if you don’t know who will be hosting your interview. If you can find the hiring manager, take a look at what they’ve been doing recently, keep it work related however, find something to break the ice with, like if they recently won an award for example.

look at the website – Most companies have an online website that you can view, usually with an accompanying ‘About us’ tab, definitely browse this section as it will give you a short but informative understanding of the business, it’s mission statement and it’s achievements thus far.

Search Google for any news stories – Lastly, you’ll want to see what the public opinion is, if any exists at all! Most businesses will have some form of news relating to them, whether it’s an article proclaiming their greatness, or if it’s just a small commendation from past staff. Ultimately you will need to get a bigger picture of the business and Google search can help you achieve that.

Facts

Throughout your research, you’ll have found things that were intriguing to you, or things that would be truly impressive in general, like having a great charity partnership or a community engagement program. All that great stuff can be useful to you in your research, so keep it in mind and even make a note of their accomplishments to discuss in the interview.

Try and find one fact or bit of information about the company that you know will impress, you might actually get asked what you know about the company. This way it becomes clear that you have researched your potential new job. 

HtE Recruitment News & Insights

This news and insights page has been written by Josh our Recruitment & Marketing Coordinator.  HtE Recruitment take no responsibility for this post.