- Let's be real.
If you received a dollar every time someone told you to do
your research before an interview,
you'd have enough money to never have to job search again.
Okay, maybe the amount would need to be slightly higher,
but the fact remains that everyone tells you to do research,
but no one walks you through the specific steps to take.
In this video,
I share three practical ways to do research
that will help you find the most relevant,
the most up to date, information on the company
and role that you're applying for.
I'll also walk you through some specific situations
to show how best to use all that information you just found
to impress the interviewer.
So let's get started.
Hi, everyone's Jeff from Google.
If you're new here,
this channel is a one stop shop for all things interview
and career related.
So if you're a current student or young professional
consider subscribing for more actionable content.
As you go through the three tips,
it's important to remember how you use the findings
from the research you did,
shouldn't just be limited to the answers you give
during the interview,
but rather also at the beginning of the interview,
where there might be some small talk
and at the end where you should
be asking meaningful questions directed
at the interviewer.
Don't worry if that sounds new to you,
I'll be giving concrete examples as we go through each tip.
So without further ado,
let's start with interview research tip number one.
Use Google Alerts to stay up to date
on your target company's latest news and job postings.
Google Alerts is a free tool that's extremely simple to use.
You just set it up once and let it run automatically.
In addition, by using a few simple searches operators,
along with the name of the company,
you turn this free tool into sort
of a personal news assistant
that provides you with regular updates.
Let me share a few of my favorite examples.
Example, number one,
if you type the job function in quotation marks,
followed by the site search operator,
you'll be alerted whenever a new job posting in that team
is listed on their official careers page.
One thing to note is that different companies obviously
have different website URLs.
So you just need to search for
that company's official career page once,
copy and paste it here, and just let it run.
For example, for Google that URL
would be careers.google.com.
Whereas for Tesla, it would be tesla.com/careers.
If you really wanna get fancy,
you can type in the broader organization in that company,
followed by an asterix,
like marketing*tesla site:tesla.com/careers,
and you'll only receive job alerts,
if a marketing role opens up.
Similarly, if you wanna cover all your bases,
you can simply input the company name,
let's say Tesla followed by site, linkedin.com
or site indeed.com to see the job postings there as well.
An often overlooked fact
is that the first application received,
is often read in more detail than later applications.
So with Google Alerts,
you can be that early bird that gets the worm,
but no one really thinks about the early worm.
Second example,
if you type in the company name,
followed by the word competition,
you'll receive alert, whatever the company has mentioned
in a competitive context in the news and blog posts.
Not only will this you a good idea
of who the closest competitors are,
but we'll also point you to well-written articles
on industry trends,
and on challenges your target company might be facing.
This is actually also a great example of how,
while you probably can't use all that information
in your answers to the standard interview questions,
you can definitely bring that up in other scenarios
to show the interviewer you've been doing your homework.
For example, in this Apple Spotify case,
if you're interviewing with Apple,
you might bring this up the course of small talk
and say something like this,
"Oh, and congratulations by the way,
on the acquisition of Scout FM,
it seems like you guys are really doubling down
on the AI podcast bet."
Alternatively, if you're interviewing with Spotify,
this might be a really good question
to ask at the end of the interview.
"So I saw that Apple recently made a strategic purchase
of Scout FM, I'm curious as to how that impacts,
Spotify's business strategy for next year."
And number three,
if you type in the company name followed by the words,
quarterly earnings,
you start to receive more financial oriented alerts.
This is useful if you're interviewing
for financial institutions like banks, private equities,
and hedge funds,
and you're gonna be covering specific verticals
like energy or tech.
Or if you're gunning for a sales finance,
or an internal investment position
at a publicly listed firm, and would like to learn more
about the company's financial health.
The last thing I wanna point out is that these alerts
are only useful if you read them.
So I highly recommend you set up one or two,
and read them on a daily or weekly basis,
instead of setting up 10 at once,
and having your inbox completely overwhelmed.
If you've you found this first tip helpful,
I actually have a Facebook group,
where I share exclusive weekly tips.
Consider joining if you haven't already,
I'll link it down below.
Interview research tip number two,
use Google Trends to understand how demand
for the target company's product has changed over time.
Google trends is another free tool provider by Google,
#notsponsored,
that's really popular with research analysts,
but can be used for job search and interviews as well.
Jumping straight into a simple example,
let's say you're interviewing with Tesla,
or any automaker that manufacturers electric vehicles.
If I type in electric cars on Google trends,
and show results for the past five years,
you'll see this graph.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that
when COVID hit around March in the United States,
demand for electric cars decreased sharply,
alongside many other products.
However, an interesting insight you might draw
from this five year data,
is that fundamentally user interest in electric cars
and renewable energy is on the rise.
And when COVID is inevitably over,
the longterm outlook for the industry is extremely positive.
Much like how smart investors,
look at the fundamentals of a company,
when making a stock purchase decision,
as opposed to isolated incidents,
you can use Google trends to learn more about the direction
that user behavior is moving towards.
On a more practical level,
I can easily see candidates using this information
when faced with the common, why do you wanna work here,
interview question.
You can say something like,
"Funnily enough, I was playing around with Google Trends
when I was doing my research,
and found that although there's a slight decrease in demand
for electric cars at the start of 2020,
I see that user interest has been growing steadily,
year on year for the past five years.
With climate change and renewable energy being top of mind
for many people, I'm certain that electric vehicles,
and similar innovations are here to stay.
And with Tesla being at the forefront of the EV industry,
I'm extremely excited to be able to bring my background
and experiences to this role."
Pro tip, you're usually able
to uncover some very interesting insights,
if you do a side by side comparison
of your target companies product with that other competitor.
For example,
if you were interviewing for business role at Google,
you might learn through a Google Alert you set up
from tip number one,
that over 70% of our 2020Q2 Revenue came
from our Google Ads business.
Taking that a step further,
let's say you decide to compare interest for Google Ads
to that of Facebook Ads, and you see this following graph.
Other than perhaps noticing Google Ads start
to outperform Facebook Ads
around the same time Jeff joined the product marketing team
in 2018,
(bell chimes)
this might be another great question
to ask at the end of your interview.
What drove the increase in user interest
for Google Ads versus Facebook Ads in 2018?
Was there simply a product update?
Or do Google run a large scale marketing campaign
to raise brand awareness?
Let me know down in the comments below,
the two or more products you might wanna search for
on Google trends to compare the respective performances.
What'd you find?
Interview research tip number three,
use the Vault Career Library to get access
to exclusive reports and reviews on your target company.
This tip is mainly for college students
because most universities,
have access to vault.com premium databases.
And that premium content is a main differentiator
between vault.com and free websites
like Glassdoor and Indeed.
I have lost access to the premium content since graduation,
but I do distinctly remember reports like Vault's Verdict.
I think this is where the writers would do primary
and secondary research first,
and then I had a very comprehensive summary
that is centralized in one location.
But the free version has benefits as well.
If you go to Career Advice Section
and click on Research Industries,
and let's just click on Best Industries For Undergraduates,
and choose the number one Energy Industry as an example.
And then we go to Overview,
this provides a very good snapshot shot of the pros and cons
of the industry.
That again provides you with talking points
for the interview.
Something I've found to be very interesting,
is this a defining event section.
Yes at first glance, it's very, very wordy,
and even talks about historical events
from the 18th and 19th centuries,
probably too dry for 99% of us.
However, if you scroll to the very bottom,
you will see how current policies
have shaped the industry thus far.
For example, this paragraph here shows
how this US president has had a major effect
on the US energy policy over the past four years.
And without touching on politics too much,
this information can be used to ask another question
to the interviewer, something along the lines of,
how will the current energy policies,
affect the electric vehicle industry
for the next five years.
So as you can see,
even if you don't have access to the premium content,
the free resources are still quite helpful.
All right, there, you have it.
Three practical tips you can use the next time
you do research for a job interview.
Hopefully compared to some of the other articles
and videos out there,
the step by step research guide you should follow
before your first interview, showed you number one,
where to find all this relevant information.
And number two,
how to use it throughout the interview process.
Please give this video a like if you find it helpful
and let me know down in the comments below,
if you have any questions.
Subscribe, if you haven't already,
see you on the next video,
and in the meantime,
(man clicks)
have a great one.
(upbeat music)