Who is the hiring manager? Who are they really?
You are scheduled for an interview with the hiring manager. Who is this person? What do you have in common?
The more you know about the hiring manager before the interview, the more you can do to work on building a relationship during the interview.
Remember — People hire people they like!
It is time to do some investigative work!
Check the hiring manager’s LinkedIn profile for the following:
- Education – What schools did they attend and where? Did you attend a same school or a school from the same conference or even the same area? Do you have the same or similar degrees?
- Work History – Did you work for the same company at any point in the past?
- Check the LinkedIn groups that the hiring manager belongs to. If you have none in common, join some of the groups and check out their participation. What have they shared? Have they commented on posts?
- Volunteering – What non-profit organizations are listed and how did the hiring manager participate?
- Recommendations – Who has the hiring manager recommended and who has recommended the hiring manager? Have they written recommendations for current or former employees who worked for them?
Copy the entire LinkedIn profile, including the recommendations, and paste it into a Word Cloud tool like Wordle.net or TagCrowd.
You can then harvest the profile for keywords. You can read and view a video on how to do this on my Career Pivot blog post called Finding Keywords to Manage Your Career.
Look for keyword phrases that the hiring manager used. Create a list of these phrases and bring that list with you to the interview.
Check out their Facebook page. Look for the following:
- Marital status
- Children
- Hobbies
- Vacation photos
Look for anything that you might have in common.
The more you know about the hiring manager before the interview, the more you can do to work on building a relationship during the interview.
Remember — People hire people they like!
Take a look at their Twitter profile. What do they tweet? What do they retweet?
Have they tweeted out any pictures?
Who do they follow and who follows them?
Check out the Twitter lists that they subscribe to. Check out the Twitter lists that they belong to.
Look for patterns.
What do you have in common?
Create a list of items that you have in common, both personally and professionally. From that list, create questions that you can ask to start the conversation.
Remember — People hire people they like!
When you show an interest in the hiring manager and who they are, you are more likely to be perceived as likeable.
Remember — People hire people they like!
Check out my book Repurpose Your Career – A Practical Guide for Baby Boomers
