Interview Prep: Know Your Target Company’s Competitors
Much has been written about how to prepare yourself before an interview. In fact, you’d think it’s all been said before. But there’s more.
Part of your job as the interviewee is to demonstrate your interest and dedication by showing a company you are well prepared—that you’ve done your homework and know all about their company.
We continuously coach our candidates and even help find key information that will impress an employer with a high level of preparation.
We believe if there are two candidates running neck and neck, the one that is better prepared has a better chance.
Candidates with scant knowledge of a company have little chance of scoring in this information age. But how much should you know about the company? The answer is…everything!
Consider this. You are on a job interview, and it has been going okay but the interviewer is not yet convinced. You need a breakthrough.
Suddenly, you find an opportunity to talk about the industry that your target company is in. If you are from another industry, the company will not expect you to be able to discuss industry trends and certainly wouldn’t expect you to know who its competitors are.
But what if you could discuss the industry and what if you did know the competitors and their market share? Let’s say you are talking to a biotechnology start up that sells equipment and services to pharmaceutical companies for the manufacture of drugs.
During your interview, if you were able to say that you have studied this little corner of the economy and discovered it is a $150 billion industry comprised of giants like Thermo Fisher Scientific doing $18 billion in revenue, Beckman Coulter doing $3.7 billion, Sartorius doing $2 billion, etc.
Such knowledge gives the unmistakable impression that you have prepared and them some for this interview.
Believe us, it helps to know the competitors because most candidates won’t. And it is not hard to get this information online. There are many ways to acquire, slice and dice what you find, all of which will elevate you in the mind of the employer.