Interview Preparation - Research a Company (employees, profit, owner, job)
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How do you go about researching a company for an interview?
For researching a company you would like to get an overview of their current contracts, competitors, and approximate income. If you work with a company you can find this information easily get this information.
I find reading corporate websites they are written in such a manner that they don't really give you an tangible information and your left trying to work out their contracts they have based on news sites, you don't really get anything with enough depth.
The websites read like a marketing brochure broadly hints at what they do.
So tell me how do you go about researching a company for a interview?
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Corporate websites are often just a very minor help. You will often learn more by searching for them on Linkedin. Some of their people may have posted interesting facts and news. Sites like Glassdoor are not reliable, many posts are either
disgruntled employees or shills. Google the company name and "annual report". Starbucks, for example has available their annual reports for the last 4 years, annual letter to shareholders, proxy statement and presentation. For many smaller companies there just won't be much available. At the minimum you can search the state business registration database which will give you the owner(s) name(s) and address, and date of registration, Then you can google the name and it may lead to additional information. You can also try Yelp and see if there are reviews with responses and may learn from them.
I don't think any company expects you to do detective work to learn about them, so reading up on what's publicly available and accessible is always my approach. In addition to a thorough review of their website, especially sections relevant to the job and annual report, I look at their social media to find out about current happenings and priorities. I usually peruse the LinkedIn profiles of people with whom I'll be interviewing. If it's a nonprofit, I review their 990.
I browse all of the usual suspects--Glassdoor, Linkedin, Indeed, etc.
Further, if it's a public company I'll review the most recent (10q) annual report. Note: The 10q is a summary of the longer 10k.
I find these on the company's investor relations page or via SEC.gov
You'll come to the interview with 10-20% of the information that you would know working for the company. Unless you work for a direct competitor which would increase that anywhere from 30-50% depending on the industry and how confidential and locked down things are. But even for a public F500 really even if you're a shareholder you know 50% of the story at best.
One of the other things I would do other than some things mentioned, is search on the job you want and how many times it was listed. Even if modified descriptions. That isn't always the easiest thing to do, but sometimes one can dig up old listing with some work. If they list and re-list the job over the last few years, I would think lots less of the job and company/employer.
How do you go about researching a company for an interview?
For researching a company you would like to get an overview of their current contracts, competitors, and approximate income. If you work with a company you can find this information easily get this information.
I find reading corporate websites they are written in such a manner that they don't really give you an tangible information and your left trying to work out their contracts they have based on news sites, you don't really get anything with enough depth.
The websites read like a marketing brochure broadly hints at what they do.
So tell me how do you go about researching a company for a interview?
This was mentioned but glossed over- All the large corporations have Annual Reports.
The beginning several pages gives you a flavor of their culture;
The Management & Operations section gives you more specific detail about their intent and how their acquisitions and/or divestitures are working out, how their market is being affected by political, financial and/or environmental factors. There may be notes about either their competitors and/or supply chain issues, for example, that describe processes that may be in peril. Anything done that was innovative in nature may be referenced.
Dun and Bradstreet have corporate information that is largely available mostly by subscription; the same can be said of Hoover's.
What hasn't been mentioned so far is checking a company's relevant industry publications to see if there are any articles about your company of interest. There are industry magazines relevant to just about every industry. The logistics business has about five or more publications available to its industry readers. Oil and Gas has several publications, so does the advertising business, the packaging industry, healthcare, etc., etc.
An example might be https://www.IndustryWeek.com where companies deploying innovative approaches/solutions to its manufacturing processes are showcased.
I get about 120 industry publications every month for a handful of industries. Use Google to find out what magazines exist for your company/industry and then check the home page for that publication, researching its archives of past issues.
Then there are the news/management/executive publications:
Or do what we do with prospective candidates for employment, pay a data/information broker for a search. This way you'll get pretty much everything available anywhere on the company. You could narrow it down to specific areas of interest or cast an ever widening net. Who knows, you may find the HR Director was caught in 1982 for peeing behind Jake's Garage in Watermadukaville. You would not belive the stuff data brokers can find on a company going back to days way before the internet.
How do you go about researching a company for an interview?
I also recommend looking up the hiring manager before an interview. You might find you have a thing or two in common which you can bring up at the interview.
Sometimes you'll find things out which they probably don't want you to know. For example, I once Googled the HM and found his DUI mugshot. I learned that another one was an ex-child molester; I declined the interview after finding that out.
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How To Research a Company
