When I was on the job hunt, I sent 50+ applications to a range of roles across different industries.
Consulting, sales, operations, IT, marketing; tech, retail, ecommerce, fitness, banking. You name it, I probably applied.
Honestly, I didn’t really care where I worked, I just wanted a job that paid well.
So when it came to applying to those jobs, I took the easy option, filling out online application forms as quickly as I could, attaching generic CV's and hitting reply.
I was playing the numbers game but it didn’t work.
I remember feeling so excited after hitting “submit”, only to be inundated with “we’re sorry to inform you” emails. I felt crushed.
The next year, after working a job I hated for 10 months (and quitting to look after my mental health), I decided to give the job search another go. But I completely changed my job search approach.
I know what didn’t work, the numbers game. So I focused on quality not quantity.
This is how I got clear on my goals:
- I chose industries that genuinely interested me
- researched the biggest companies within those industries (and when I say research, I’m talking hours of in-depth stuff)
- networked with industry professionals on LinkedIn
- and tailored my CV, cover letter and applications.
I applied for 10 jobs, not 50, and to my surprise I started getting invited to interviews.
I progressed with BT, Sky, Virgin Media, Vodafone and Amazon and landed my dream job on the 2017 Business Management Graduate Scheme at BT.
It worked! I couldn’t believe it.
The key difference between my success here and my failure the year before was the quality approach and the research that goes with that.
I want to show you how you can effectively research a company to land job offers.
Let’s use L’Oréal (a multinational beauty brand) as an example company to research.
The website is the first place to start, and is usually a goldmine, if you know where to look.
This is L’Oréal’s homepage - when you hover over “Group” it brings up this drop down.
Straight away, there are a few thing that stand out to me as a job seeker looking to learn more about L'Oréal.
Our purpose
This is the first place I’d look because a companies purpose/vision/mission will give you an excellent idea of where they’re going and if you can get behind it.
L’Oréal’s purpose is: Create the beauty that moves the world
To expand on their mission, they break down what’s important to their company:
- Quality
- Diversity
- Sustainability
- Women empowerment
- Innovation
- Efficacy
These are some really strong stances that you can get behind and reference.
They also show a 1min video about their mission here
Values & Mindset
The next place is their values. Company values drive the culture, so it’s really important you understand what their values are so you can see if they inspire you or not.
L’Oréal’s 6 values are:
- Passion
- Innovation
- Entrepreneurial Spirit
- Open-mindedness
- Quest for Excellence
- Responsibility
These values tell you what the makeup (see what I did there?) of the company is like and they type of people who work there.
If you are an entrepreneurial type of person who has an open mind and always strives to be the best, then perhaps this will be a great place for you to thrive?
You can learn more about how they talk about each of their values here.
Life at L’Oréal
In this section, there is SO much info to learn about what it’s like to work at the company.
Reading about the first story you can see above (The Employee Citizen Engagement Program) you’ll see that L’Oréal back up their commitments with real actions/results.
Here you can see the brilliant initiatives employees have to volunteer, donate and support non-profits.
Imagine using numbers like this in an interview!
Moving over to another tab “Our Commitments & Responsibilities”, you can see a clear focus on protecting the planet, caring for people and new product innovations to support this.
When looking more into the products you can discover the initiatives being run to improve sustainability. If sustainability is important to you, you can reference one of these product success stories:
The next place you can visit is social media.
On their LinkedIn account, the top post is about their innovation competition for 2022, called Brandstorm.
And it got some great engagement, here’s one of the comments:
This would be a great project to reference!
It shows that L’Oréal is supporting small businesses and entrepreneurs (which is aligned to their core values) and it might be something that inspires you too?
As you can see, there are SO many ways you can effectively research a company.
And this research can help you land an offer by:
- tailoring your CV
- writing compelling cover letter and application answers
- answering interview questions like “why do you want to work here?” with complete confidence, facts and authenticity.
- and standing out at every stage of the job search!
To take this one step further, you can even start engaging with their employees on LinkedIn to get the inside scoop! (we’ll show you how to do that in a blog post soon!)
Dan, Founder at Gradvance