Tough Interview Questions - What do you know about our company?

Following is a tough interview question:

What do you know about our company?

Similar interview questions:
What do you know about us? Have you researched our company? What have you learned about our company?

Why the interviewer is asking this question:
The interviewer is asking if you've done your homework. But more than just doing your homework, the interviewer is seeking to understand the depth of your homework. Especially with brand name companies, the interviewer wants to know if you understand the company beyond the common public perception. It is not enough to give your impressions as a customer. I used to head up global hiring for Amazon and a large percentage of candidates would answer this question by saying they were a loyal Amazon customer, thinking that would be sufficient. But understanding Amazon from a customer perspective is only a starting point. You need to also understand the breadth of Amazon's offerings (most customers were primarily tied to just one or two product segments) and the company culture.

The best approach to answering this question:
Do your homework. Not just a quick overview, but do in depth research about the company. It's not enough to visit their home page and read a few basic descriptions of the company and its products. Yes, you should start there, but you should also look at secondary sources. You need to know the company, its products and/or services, its industry and its competitive positioning. Who are their competitors? What is their unique value proposition? What do current and past employees say about the company as an employer (although be careful with how you handle this data, which can often be highly subjective). Then you need to be able to articulate this information back to the employer in a way that is supported by your own experiences, showing a good cultural fit.

An example of how to best answer this question:
"I have been an active customer of Amazon since the very beginning back in 1995. Over the years my customer relationship has grown over several key categories. Yet it wasn't until I was preparing to meet with you that I really spent the time to dig deep to understand the breadth of Amazon's offerings and more about the company culture. I was not aware of Amazon's cloud offering, AWS, until doing this research. I have now become an AWS customer and moved my entire digital media library into the Amazon cloud. And I have read a couple of books and several articles about Amazon's culture. What impressed me the most is Amazon's commitment to the customer and the way it drives behavior at all levels of the company. This ties in very closely with my experience in managing the customer experience for one of our product lines. Would you like me to tell you more about it?"

An example of how you should not answer this question:
"Well, I'm pretty sure everyone knows Amazon, what is there not to know? Online books, need I say more? You're the pioneers in selling books on the Internet. I did see some recent negative press about Amazon where a bookstore closed down because they couldn't compete, but hey, that's what happens when you become the biggest game in town, shoving out all of the smaller players. And I read that you've been strong arming your suppliers to get prices and delivery that none of your competitors can get, but again, I think that's just the other guys complaining because they can't compete with you, right?"

Remember to answer each interview question behaviorally, whether it is a behavioral question or not. The easiest way to do this is to use an example from your background and experience. Then use the S-T-A-R approach to make the answer a STAR: talk about a Situation or Task (S-T), the Action you took (A) and the Results achieved (R). This is what makes your interview answer uniquely yours and will make your answer a star!