artsculture

Stalk like a career professional

The internet has made stalkers out of all of us. You know exactly what I’m talking about. 

But instead of stalking your ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend, consider using your newfound detective skills for more productive (i.e. less emotionally jarring) purposes, like snagging the job of your dreams. 

Interested in a company and need to find a person to contact? Google away. Trying to suss out the guy who’s interviewing you next week? Facebook him! 

Within minutes, you can find out where he’s from, how to reach him, where he’s worked in the past, and – perhaps most importantly – what his favorite movie is. The more you know about him, the better your ability to sell yourself. 

We’re not suggesting you cultivate an entirely false personality to match your interviewer — that would be disingenuous and would surely come back to bite you. 

But knowing a bit more about someone can help you find points of commonality you might otherwise have missed. If you find out they went to your alma mater, you can ever-so-subtly work that into the conversation in an interview. Or maybe you share the same taste in music? Find an appropriate way to bring it up. We all know that getting hired has a lot to do with likeability. And fair or not, people generally like other people who are similar to them. Why miss out on an opportunity to highlight these similarities? 

Are you ready to do some in-depth detective work? Luckily, you’ve got an extremely powerful investigative tool right at your fingertips. Abuse it wisely!

Google

What did people do before Google? They used encyclopedias. And fold-out maps. 

They also had a lot less information on potential employers. 

Embrace this search engine giant. For jobseekers, it’s an absolute godsend. 

Maybe you already know the name of the person who’ll be interviewing you and you just want to know a little more about them before the face-to-face interrogation. Or perhaps you want to send someone your resume and cover letter but need to track down contact details and some background information. 

If Googling your person of interest is limited to a simple full name search, you’re missing out on lots of prime stalking potential. Try adding other relevant keywords to maximize your results. Where did they go to college? Where do they live? Where have they worked? By adding these items to the search terms, you’ll likely get more relevant results. 

Here are six(6) great Google tips: 

(1) Make sure you search their full name in quotation marks: “John Doe”

(2) Try searching for possible alternative names, usernames, and nicknames. You can sometimes find their favorite username by finding them on Facebook, then using the beginning of the email address listed. So, if John Doe’s email address is johnnydoeeyes@gmail.com, search for: johnnydoeeyes and see what comes up.

(3) If you know where they work or went to college, look for any mention of them on that particular site. So let’s say they work for Apple. You would google: site:apple.com “john doe”.

(4) If you know where John Doe works, you can easily figure out his email address. Let’s say, once again, that he works at Apple. Search: “john doe” email, @apple.com. You may want to try various name combinations (i.e. first initial plus last name, or last name first)

(5) If a page has come up in your search but it is no longer available, try hitting “Cache” — often that will bring up the expired page.

(6) Don’t forget to try Google Images: this is especially useful if you’re unsure of the gender of your person of interest.