So you’ve done it. You’ve gotten the job interview of your dreams. You’ve picked out your most professional outfit, found both of your matching dress shoes and printed a copy of your resume to take with you. You’ve gotten through all of the questions asked of you with flying colors only to be asked at the end of it all….”So, do you have any questions for me?” … … … … No? Yes? Maybe? Just what kinds of things should one ask when closing the interview? Well, rewind to the night before your big day to get the answer to this one.
The evening before your interview you should take a look at the company’s website to learn a little more about them if you haven’t already. Typically this should be done after the first resume submission, but that’s just my opinion. Try your best to understand the business even if the role you are interviewing for is not a prominent one. Knowledge of where you will be working is your best defense against a question like that. I would also go one step further and do a Google search on the company and possibly the president or CEO of the company. If their name comes up in any searches, read about them. Discover interesting facts or figures about their business process and any current events they might be involved in. If they are sponsoring a charity race soon, that might be a good thing to come back with. You could say, “I was reading where THIS AWESOME company is going to be hosting the race for the Bears this weekend, do you happen to know if there are any volunteer opportunities available?” or “I know that this organization was in recent talks to go public, how do you feel about that?”
The point here is to become involved with the company and interview by doing your research online. This way you go into the interview with a knowledge database in your head of facts and information about them that you can pull out of your bag of awesome. More than likely they will be surprised to hear that you actually took the time to research them and learn more about them as a whole. It’s not hard to start a conversation. All you need to do so is the best information that the internet has to offer. Searches are a wonderful place to start.
So, in closing…. when posed with that scary awkward silence fill it with information and great conversation from one of these sources:
1. Google Search about the company….search blogs, web, video, etc.
2. Social Search using Social Mention….let’s you find out who’s been talking about the company through twitter, facebook, tumblr, etc.
3. Feedly.com is a great place to organize your search and keep tabs on companies you’d like to work for.
4. The specific company’s own website. They don’t have that thing posted for nothing, you know.
If you have any others you’d like to share with me…please do so! I’d love to hear about them. Until then…happy searching! Oh and if you’re ever posed with the infamous tree question…I always like to answer “Money Tree”. 🙂
“It’s all about the research…”
The Box of Buzz 