Research is a critical part of your interview preparation. Learning about the company you’re interviewing with, the business context and the person you’ll be meeting will make you more confident. Preparation reflects positively on you as a candidate. And it’s expected in this age of unprecedented access to current business information. But that’s only one reason to do it.
Being well-informed helps you to shift the interview from a one-way interrogation into a two-way information exchange. It’ll help you to ask good questions. A well-placed, well thought through question can elicit invaluable information for you to use as you move forward in your conversations with a potential employer. A well-planned question can also speak volumes about the extent to which you understand the issues facing an organisation or an industry.
You should spend as much of your research time planning good questions as you do planning good answers. Try questions you want to ask.
Finally, and most importantly, research helps you to plan – in a very strategic way – how you’ll present yourself in the interview. Your communication strategy should shift, if only slightly, for each conversation you have, based on what you know about the organisation or person you’ re speaking to.
