Do you have an interview scheduled? Planning to come to the Fall Career Fair on September 16? Going to a networking event? Don't be surprised when you meet an employer if the first words out of his mouth are "What do you know about our company?" Remember this about that question: it is not an invitation for you to ask "What do you do?" The question is intended to find out if you're on the ball and have done your research.

You are so lucky because so much information is available on the Internet. Take advantage of your luck and start searching.

Using your favorite search engine, go to the organization's website and read all you can. Pay particular attention to the company's products or services (including latest endeavors), growth for the past five years, future plans, mission statement, names of managers, locations, corporate headquarters, who the competition is, and their history. With the above information in hand, you should have a good overview of the organization.

If you are interviewing, don't stop there. You want all the information you can gather. Ask everyone you know including instructors, classmates, friends, neighbors, relatives, the folks at Career Services,(you get the idea) if they know anyone who works for the organization of interest to you. If so, find out if they can refer you to that person so you can ask some questions and get an insider's perspective of the company. You may even want to visit the library, and ask the research librarian if they can provide any other information.

If you follow these guidelines, you should be ready to answer that question "What do you know about our company?" Relief. . .now you can move on to "Tell me about yourself". We'll talk about that in our next posting. ~ jan

Want to make your resume stronger?

Want to make your resume stronger? Take a look at your professional experience/work history section. Does it read like a job description? Be truthful now -- did you, in fact, cut and past your job description into your resume?

Here's a tip: your resume will be more effective if you focus on accomplishments and achievements and results of what you did, rather than job duties. How do you do that? Think of what you did really well -- what you brought to your position that someone else wouldn't have. Did you create something new? Did you reduce something negative? It may help to look at each of your work history statements and ask yourself "so what?"

Example: "Helped create fliers and posters.". Let's look at this statement and what it really means. This person worked as part of a team with two other people. Employers really really value teamwork, so let's change "helped" to "Worked in team of three". Now we have "Worked in team of three to create fliers and posters". So what? The fliers and posters marketed new products. Stronger yet: "Worked in team of three to create marketing pieces advertising new products".

One more important point. . .business increased 25% the next quarter. We have a lot of good information, probably too much for one point. So, we break it down into two accomplishment statements.

First statement:"Created marketing pieces advertising new products, working in team of three." Second statement: "Contributed to 25% increase in business for first quarter of FY 09". Compared to "Helped create fliers and posters", we came up with two dynamite accomplishment statements, pointing out teamwork, creativity and results.

Important to remember: don't exaggerate! You may be asked to speak to anything in your resume and it's very important to be honest. Bottom line -- give yourself credit for your accomplishments and achievements, remembering to be truthful.

~ jan