It is a job-hunting rule of thumb to carry out a proper research of a potential employer before honoring any invitation to a session primed with barrages of confidence-deflating questions coined softly as an interview. Everyone knows this. But if you don’t, now you do.

A very well-conducted employer research ups your chances of landing a position in any organization. How? For starters, it makes you answer questions more intelligently and confidently.

Not to mention that it can help tilt the conversation in your favour and you can through this employer research, sell yourself while stroking your interviewer’s ego.

But how exactly do you carry out a good employer research?

1. Visit the organization’s website

A good employer research on the web is one where you are actively scanning for the company’s year of establishment, projects, announcements, promotions, awards and recognition, products and services, financial information, locations, divisions, departments, and subsidiaries.

You will not believe the kind of information some interviewers expect you to know about their companies. This is why your employer research has to be solid.

2. Ask around

The motivation for this method of researching employers is to obtain information concerning company culture, values, salary scale, employee welfare and benefits, trainings and speed of progression on the company’s ladder.

You won’t find this on the web so you should ask people that have worked, is working, or knows someone who works there. These will better arm you for the interview.

3. Check out professional networking sites

Visit sites like www.insidify.com and www.linkedin.com to run a search on the company and see which of the people in your network work there when researching employers. You can then contact these people for more accurate information as regards the company and what to expect in the interview.

4. Do a background check on employees

Part of an impressive employer research is checking the background of top employees. You can also do the same for any other employee you know may sit on the interview panel. This can easily be done when you run a search on the company on LinkedIn.

What you should look out for is what interests the employee and use that to your advantage in the interview.

5. Visit company review sites

Finally, you won’t also go wrong by visiting a site like www.glassdoor.com in your bid to research employers. What the site does is collect anonymous employee reviews of the company which could be on anything from company culture to salary and workloads.

Have you ever tried any of this? Has it worked for you? Leave a comment for me.

Culled from http://www.insidify.com/discovery/5-ways-you-should-research-employers-before-any-interview