101 Smart Questions to Ask on Your Interview (10 page)
Read 101 Smart Questions to Ask on Your Interview Online
Authors: Ron Fry
Executive, professional, and technical placement agencies:
If you are getting the job interview through an agency, see how much you can learn about the prospective employer from them (and see
Chapter 4
).
Turn the tables on the news media—ask
them
the questions! A community newspaper’s business reporter or editor will usually be the person most knowledgeable about local companies. They’ll know about developments at particular companies, how employees like working for them, and their reputation in the community.
Every industry has at least one trade magazine covering its developments. Call a junior (assistant or associate) editor. Ask if the publication has covered the company and, if so, how you can obtain copies of pertinent article(s).
A college placement office, your fraternity/sorority, or alumni association might be able to tell you about someone working at the company. Alumni are usually happy to help someone from their alma mater.
If the company is public, it will have an investor relations representative who can tell you which brokers and analysts “follow the stock.” This means that a representative of the brokerage firm has visited with the company, written a detailed report for investors, and analyzed its industry, balance sheet, and management. Call the broker and ask for a copy of the report. It will be objective, revealing, and give you terrific material with which to impress the interviewer.
Start with the
Web Site Source Book 2008: A Guide to Major U.S. Businesses, Organizations, Agencies, Institutions, and Other Information Sources on the World Wide Web
. There are also a multitude of blogs, bulletin boards, databases, and discussion groups through which you can track down obscure information to impress a prospective employer in an interview. Your first step, of course, should be to check out the company’s website.
Before you check out individual websites, consider using a meta engine, such as profusion, dogpile, or webcrawler, to “search the search engines.” Then consider looking at some of the websites I’ve listed below. Most are for research; some are just for advice. Only
one (the first) is hosted by a resume-writing service (and that’s because of the excellent links the site offers):
www.1stresumes.com
www.6figurejobs.com
www.Acinet.org
(America’s Career Infonet, sponsored by the U.S. Dept. of Labor)
www.Ajb.dni.us
(America’s job bank)
www.Alumni-network.com
(high-tech jobs)
www.Bestjobsusa.com
www.Bilingual-jobs.com
www.Bizjournals.com
(local business news from cities throughout the U.S.)
www.Businessweek.com
www.Businesswire.com
www.Career.com
www.Careerbuilder.com
www.Careerbuzz.com
(hip and happening, but for young people only)
www.Careerjournal.com
(a
Wall Street Journal
company)
www.Careermag.com
www.Careers.org
(with 4,000 links to other sites)
www.Careershop.com
www.Ceoexpress.com
www.Collegegrad.com
www.Computerjobs.com
www.Corporateinformation.com
www.Cyberkingemployment.com
(56 languages, 130 countries)
www.Dice.com
(primarily technical careers)
www.Dnb.com
(information on 10,000,000 U.S. companies from Dun and Bradstreet)
www.Employment911.com
www.Eresumes.com
www.Fiveoclockclub.com
(one of the best job hunt sites)
www.Forbes.com
www.Guidestar.org
(for nonprofits)
www.Hirediversity.com
(if you’re disabled)
www.Homefair.com
(to compare cost of living by city and state)
www.Hoovers.com
www.Idexec.com
(online access to 2 million decision-makers at 900,000 companies worldwide)
www.Jobbankusa.com
www.Joblynx.com
www.Jobstar.org
www.Jobweb.com
(college students)
www.Latpro.com
(if you’re fluent in Spanish or Portuguese)
www.Monster.com
www.Monstertrak.com
(primarily for college students)
www.Nationjob.com
www.Nettemps.com
(temp jobs)
www.Newslink.org
(worldwide directories of newspapers and magazines)
www.Prnewswire.com
(news on companies and individuals)
www.Recruitersonline.com
(more than 2,000 registered recruiters)
www.Reuters.com
www.Truecareers.com
www.Wageweb.com
(salary info)
www.Wetfeet.com
(though most of their insider guides are pricey)
www.Worktree.com
www.Wsj.com
(
Wall Street Journal
)
This site deserves special mention. Go to their message boards (the Electronic Water Cooler), which are organized by industry, company(!), university, law school, business school, even career topic. The day I last checked, there were 1,654,610 messages listed (some quite old, but the number is nevertheless impressive). Talk about getting the inside scoop! What a potential treasure trove of information!
Ask the Company Itself
After you’ve culled the
outside
—and probably more objective—sources of information, take a look at what the company tells the public about itself. Check out the company’s website and/or call the company’s Investor Relations or Human Resources department to obtain the following:
Mark Twain said that there are three kinds of lies—“lies, damned lies, and statistics”—and you’ll find all of them in most annual reports. Read between the lines to learn as much as you can about the company.