Business Intelligence for interviews

If you have several days before a hiring manager interview, you need to do your business intelligence due dilligence.  Everyone should at least look at the company's website, read last 6-12 months of press releases/news about that company, review the job description/announcement, look up the hiring manager on LinkedIn (prior companies, etc.).  We'll talk about how you might be able to find out about the prior incumbent using the past (not current) link on your advanced people search.

If you are returning to the same hiring manager when there is no current job open, and want to share more business intelligence, I suggest you review the free webinar by Sam Richter:

Webinar from “Get back to Work faster” at http://www.getbacktoworkfaster.com/events/

Why is this webinar useful?  Most of us don’t know enough about the company we’re interviewing for – its pain points, the industry concerns, white papers, and other interesting facts that will distinguish you in the interview even when your resume may not be as stellar.  A simple Google search or advanced search may not give us everything.   We may need to narrow our focus on 5-7 companies or 1-2 industries depending on the availability of jobs in that search.  We should find contacts in those companies (use Linked-In to assist).  We should also do our networking with friends and associates to find company contacts and hiring managers. 

Sam also provides information about searching archived data; about searching for white papers (best practices to solve specific problems).  Sam has his own website to assist with company or industry business intelligence.  Sam talked about advanced search buttons: links to avoid memorizing the scripts to narrow the search.  He mentioned the power of the asterisk * to fill in the blank data (e.g. name,  etc.)  He mentioned the importance of using - filetype: _____ to get powerpoint presentation material.  He mentioned the importance of business journals (Bizjournals.com).  He talked about the association of association websites; about the use of ZoomInfo.com and pipl.com. 

Manta.com is free with your library and provides Dunn&Bradstreet-type data.  See your reference librarian to set up your internet account and download the data to you home computer.  To get the other material from Sam Richter, go to his website at www.samrichter.com/job/. 

This business intelligence info can be used by consultants trying to get into a company to offer consulting services or other business intelligence.  It can be used to research products and services.  This data is a gold mine for the person trying to more effectively network and interview for their next position.