Candidates are very likely to come across some variation of this interview question. It’s important to be prepared to answer this question, and no, this is not a company's way of fishing for compliments.
What it’s really asking is for you to demonstrate you took time to research the company. What information did you find about the company’s values, culture, successes, pain points, etc. that made them a fit for you and allows you to show your value to them in return?
Here are some research tools to help you crush this question:
Company Site
Almost every organization has an “About Us” section. Read it. Then find where they listed their values (can sometimes be found in their “Career Opportunities” section). Memorize it and contextualize everything else you learn back to these values.
Social Media Posts
Check out their company page, recent posts, interactions, etc. On LinkedIn, if you scroll down on the company’s page, there may be some insights, such as a graph showing whether or not the company is growing.
Google News
Type the company name in quotes and click on the news tab. Recent acquisitions? Funding? Projects?
ZoomInfo / Crunchbase
These types of sites can provide some intel into the overview of the company. Use this mainly to get a general sense of the company, as some of the information can be dated.
Google Alerts
Create alerts, so when your target company name is mentioned, you’ll be one of the first to know.
Google Boolean Search
My personal favorite, you can find info here that’ll make a hiring manager say, “how did you know that?!” Type this into the Google search bar (include the quotes): “Company Name” filetype:pdf
Try this with other file types, like “doc” or “xls”. You’ll be amazed how much info you can find that wasn’t readily available on the company’s site.
Chrome Extensions
Chrome extensions, such as Crystal Knows, can help evaluate the personality of team members and managers, based on their LinkedIn profile. This may give insights into how to approach them in different scenarios. For example, you can learn about your audience’s preferred way of getting information, whether presented as cold hard facts, or through an inspirational story. This may help, not with what to answer, but how to answer.
These are just some of many different ways of finding out about a company, without even having to talk to someone who works there. Happy researching!
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