How to Conduct Background Research on Your Interviewer

When I was a recruiter, I always appreciated it when someone had taken the effort to learn a bit about me. 

"Shelley, I see that you went to the hotel school at Cornell." 

"Ms. Piedmont, I noticed you were involved with Girl Scouts. I was one, too." 

"I reviewed your LinkedIn information and noted that you have been with the company for six years. What changes have you seen during that time?"

Building rapport with an interviewer is a crucial skill when looking for a new job. There are two things that the interviewer is assessing: 1) whether you have the skills to do the job, and 2) whether you are a fit for the culture of the company. Being personable, curious, and friendly is a plus for most jobs. People are sizing you up to see if they want to work with you for eight hours a day, five days a week. Part of building a relationship is to take an interest in the other person. Making the effort to learn about your interviewer(s) can pay dividends in helping the interviewer have positive feelings about you, address any objections, and ask questions that the interviewer will find interesting.

Who Is Your Interviewer?

I am always stunned when clients tell me that they do not know who will be interviewing them. This is an essential piece of information that a company should give to a candidate. If the communications you are receiving about your interview is over the phone, please ask for a name. Make sure you get the correct spelling as well as the job title. If you are sent the interview information via email or text, you can respond to the sender with the same questions. If you are sent information via an automated system where you cannot send a return message, call up the person responsible for recruitment or the talent acquisition department. Ask someone there if they can find out this information for you. If no one can give you this information, let's chalk this up as a red flag about this company.

Where to Look for Information

There are many places that one can potentially find information about an interviewer. Try to search in as many sites as possible, as the information you find may be different depending on the source.

Corporate Websites

One of your first stops should be on the company website to see if the interviewer is featured. You may find a biography, or this person may be mentioned about a corporate initiative, news item, or even on the careers page. 

Social Media

Most professionals have at least one social media account. Your first stop should be on LinkedIn. There you can get information about the person's work history and education at a minimum. Twitter may have limited biographic information. A people search will more likely provide information on tweets the person has made or those where they have been tagged. Using Facebook might be a bit harder to find information if the person has made their profile private. See what you can find. Sometimes the person has not locked down all aspects of their profile, so you may see photos posted or video. Any bit of extra information may be useful. You can also check out sites like Instagram, Pinterest, Quora, or Youtube to see if you can also find any information on the person.

General internet search

I recommend you do an internet search of the person's name to see what may come up. You may find where the person has appeared in the news, on a past employer's website, and involvement in organizations, both professional or personal. You may also find information about hobbies, family, etc. A tip is to search the person’s name in as many ways as you can think of (example: William, Bill, Will, etc.)

Personal Website

Depending on the person's career field, they may have a personal website. It is always good to check out any personal website (you often can find the URL in the contact section of LinkedIn), to see what the interviewer wants to share with the world.

Glassdoor

With employees providing feedback about working at a company, you may find that the interviewer may be named. Of course, it could be either good or bad, but certainly worth checking out.

What Information Is Important

You want to collect information that helps you with two things: 1) learning commonalities you may have that may help build rapport, and 2) the person's backstory, including likes, dislikes, and interests. 

Potential commonalities include:

College attended

Major

Extracurriculars

Professional Organizations

Volunteer work

Common contacts

At a minimum, most LinkedIn profiles will have information on the person's work history and education. That is at least a start to understanding more about the interviewer. Also, look to see if the person has something in their About section, a place where individuals can write more about their skills and what they find meaningful about their work and even their lives. Great insight about the person can be gleaned from this area. Also, check out any volunteer activities, awards, and professional organizations. Don't forget the recommendations section. What do others say about this person, and what do they feel are skills that they find significant in others?

Also, take note of the information that is posted on any social media site. Are the posts more of a personal nature or professional? Are they written in a casual style or formal? What is the point of view expressed? Who does the interview interact with online? Do they belong to any groups, and what are these? All of this can give you a picture of the type of person that will be interviewing you. Having a picture of their backstory will help you determine how they are likely to approach an interview, their areas of interest, and how you best should represent yourself to appeal to this person.

Gathering Information from Common Colleagues

You may have colleagues or friends in common with the interviewer. You might learn about this through your research (such as seeing a friend works at the interviewer's previous employer). Find mutual connections on LinkedIn (check the person's LinkedIn profile to find common connections or the company page to see if there is anyone that works there that you know). First, you need to differentiate between a weak and strong connection. It will be easier to get information through a strong connection, but not impossible if it is a weak one. Strong connections of yours may be more open about giving you information. Still, even weak connections may be receptive to providing some information on the interviewer if you ask professionally and indicate that you are preparing for an upcoming interview. There is always a chance that your inquiries may get back to the interviewer, and you will have to assess the risk of this with the reward of having information that other people interviewing will not. I would take the risk, and you might find the interviewer, if they learn of your inquiries, will be impressed by your creativity and problem-solving skills.

Depending on how candid your colleague or friend will be, you may want to ask questions around the following topics:

Leadership style

Pet peeves

Development of staff

How this person is viewed within the organization

How much the interviewer is an advocate for the team within the organization

This information and your other research will help you better understand your interviewer's perspective on the work, the organization, and his/her profession in general. 

How to Use This Information In an Interview and Not Seem Like a Stalker

There is a fine line between using the information to build rapport with your interviewer and coming across as a stalker. Let me give you an example. I heard about an interview where two people were interviewing the candidate. He had done his homework and knew where both interviewers had previously worked. When one interviewer who did not know the other interviewer well. In the conversation, he asked where the other interviewer had previously worked. The candidate, overeager, instead answered the question. There was a bit of awkward silence after this. 

Do not use the information you learned to show off. Instead, the information can be dropped into the conversation when it makes sense and flows with the conversation. If you went to the same high school, as an example, when the interviewer discusses your college, you can mention that you went there after graduating from "Hometown" high school. This would usually prompt the interviewer to say that they went there as well, which can open up a conversation about high school times.

If you have volunteered at a community organization or have a family member that has volunteered, you can remark that you saw, via LinkedIn, that the person has volunteered with X organization and that you had too. Tell the interviewer about what you did (or family member) with the organization and ask about the interviewer's involvement. Often this is nice to do at the start of the conversation when you are getting to know each other. 

You also talk about an award received or speaking at a conference. Just avoid anything uncomfortable to chat about, such as legal issues or a messy transition out of a company.

Use the Information to Anticipate Objections

Sometimes you will gather information about the interviewer that will provide you with some idea of that person's "hot buttons." By this, I mean firmly held beliefs that influence how they think and, as a result, how they might judge you as a candidate. As an example, if the person has a strongly held belief that collaboration is a key to organizational success, then you know that you should include in your responses to questions many examples of when you successfully collaborated with others. If your abilities in this area are not readily apparent to the interviewer, you may not move on. If you do not have a particular skill or experience that you know is important to the interviewer, you should figure out how to incorporate how you can gain the experience or use your resources to work around not having this skill or experience. 

It is much better to develop a strategy to address this than not even to know that this might be an issue.

Use the Information to Figure Out What to Ask

Another use of your research can be put into place at the end of the conversation - when you will get the opportunity to ask questions. If you understand the interviewer's backstory, you can ask questions that are more insightful and that you know will resonate.

For example, if you know that the interviewer came from a large organization and the present employer is medium-sized, you could ask a question like this:

I, like you, have worked in a huge organization. What do you see as the most important differences between that type of environment and the one here, which is much smaller?

Or, if you know the interviewer is very interested in emerging technologies:

I know you gave a speech at the Manufacturing Association about emerging technologies around quality control. Tell me more about the emphasis that this company has on emerging technologies and how you see it as a competitive advantage?

Or, if you know that the interviewer has developed many people that were promoted:

How do you determine what an employee needs in terms of development to grow in their career? Do you give "stretch" assignments?

By asking these questions, you will appeal to the interest of the interviewer, which builds rapport. You will also learn more about them and how they think, which is beneficial for determining if there is potentially a good fit with either them as a boss or the organization.

Conclusion

You should always gather as much information about the company, but do not forget to collect information about the interviewer. Good salespeople always try to learn as much as they can about a prospective client. This helps them build rapport and to be better prepared to anticipate questions and overcome objections. As a candidate, your research on the interviewer can do the same thing. Make this a priority when doing your interview preparation.

For more information about interview preparation, please read the following blog posts:

How to Use the STAR Methodology for Better Interview Answers

Shelley Piedmont is a job search coach. She wants to help job seekers put their best foot forward by providing the tools for a successful job search. If you need career coaching, resume preparation, interview skills assessment, or LinkedIn profile assistance, she can help. Schedule a 15-minute no-obligation consultation.