Interviewing: How Do Your Skills Fit in?

Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile in Seven Steps

Some of the most basic advice for going into an interview is to research the company.

Sean Casto, CEO of Preapps.com, says in this piece at Techli:

“You have to know the company that you are applying for. Tech companies tend to think that what they are doing will change the world more so than other companies, and in many cases they do. Know why the company you are applying for is important.”

It’s so much easier these days to not only research the business, but also to find the hiring manager’s name and to connect with recruiters online. Yet companies tell me that they still have candidates coming in who have failed to do their homework.

“That’s probably the biggest turnoff,” Dana Muckerheide, staffing manager for Technical Consulting and Services at Teradata, told me recently.

L.J. Brock, vice president of global talent acquisition and infrastructure at Red Hat, told me that it requires more than just knowing what the company does. It requires thinking about how your particular skills fit in with what the company does.

“It’s not just that they’ve done the research to understand our company, but that they’ve applied it to their thought process and that’s why they’re here wanting to learn more. It’s not just the research, but the application of that research to their candidacy,” he said.

This article by security consultant Lenny Zeltser is still one of my favorite posts on the work you need to put into an interview.