If you're on the job hunt, you'll probably know that you need to research a company before you apply – but that's pretty vague advice. What's the point of research, and what should you be looking for?
Today, I'll share my personal company research method – yours might be different, but hopefully it can inspire!
👩🔬 Why research a company?
Rather than just applying for everything you see with a job title that matches your needs, you should spend a bit of time doing some research on the company:
You'll be able to weed out companies that would've been a waste of time applying for because you don't actually want to work there
If you're writing a cover letter, you have the ability to write a much better one because of what you've learned
If you make it through to interviews, you'll have real questions to ask
Researching doesn't have to take ages. Just 5-10 minutes per company should be able to get you in the right direction. (If I make it to the later stages of an interview, I'll typically go back and do a bit more digging anyway.)
👀 What I'm looking for
There's no point researching for the sake of researching – I typically want to find out these things:
What does this company do? Are they software, hardware, multiple products? What sector are they operating in?
Typically this doesn't change my decision to apply, but it's important to know what you might be getting into! And if you're applying for a role at a place with multiple products, you might be able to figure out how they fit into the ecosystem.
How big are they? (You can usually see a range of employees on LinkedIn.) Where are the offices? How diverse is it?
Personally, I don't like working as much at places that are tiny (<20 people) or massive (>1000 people), so I'm looking for my sweet spot
I usually scan through LinkedIn employees or look at their About page to see diversity of employees – if you've got more than 20 employees, some of them should be female!
Are they hiring a lot right now? What else is up?
Doesn't often change anything, but you can get a feel for if the role is a replacement or part of a growth phase sometimes by this.
Are they hybrid, remote, or fully in office? What would my commute look like?
There's no best one, only your personal preference!
How are they funded?
If you're looking at startups/scaleups, this might be more relevant. I'll just google "[Company] funding" and see if I can find anything there.
If I progress to interview I would also ask, but I like to have an idea of what I'm getting into.
If you're looking at a company that's listed on a public exchange, you might also want to take a brief glance at their performance over the last few years.
What interests me about this company?
While researching, I usually find something that's particularly interesting – sometimes it's the product, but it might also be what I learn from the website about the culture, the industry, the founders/leadership team, or something else.
Sometimes these questions mean I rule companies out (or am more excited by them!) and sometimes they just mean I'm more informed about what I might be getting into. You're now in a better position to write a personalised cover letter (that actually gets read) or to have a conversation with a recruiter at that initial phone screen.
⛳️ Some of my red flags
For me, these are things that would make me think twice about applying:
If the working style doesn't suit me – eg. I don't love being fully remote, but I would consider it. If I see this, it means I would need to really be interested in the company.
If the industry doesn't match up with my values – I don't mind working in "boring" industries, but I wouldn't work in something like gambling.
If it gets reposted a lot or was posted a long time ago – not always true, but these could indicate that you're really late in the game or something's going wrong on their end.
💖 How much of the criteria should you meet before you apply?
You definitely don't have to meet 100% of the criteria to apply for a job. Typically, if I meet about 2/3, I'm in. Here are some aspects you might want to consider:
If I don't have clearly essential criteria, I won't apply.
If I'm more than 2 years away from the idea experience window, I won't apply. For example, if a job wants 5 years' experience and you have 3, I think you should apply anyway. But if you have 2, then it's out of reach.
If the criteria makes me want the job less, I'll consider it some more. For example, the criteria might say they want someone who can adapt to last-minute deadlines and work late without notice – that might be something I can do, but it makes me nervous about why it's in there!
Researching companies before applying can definitely be a differentiator, because not everyone does it and it shows. Everyone's research criteria needs to look a little different, but I hope mine can give you a great start! 💖
