The Smart Employee: 5 Tips for Researching Your Future Employer

When it comes to finding a job, you don’t have to wait for employers to call you. Rather, you should be proactive and see what sorts of information you can find out about them instead. From checking a company’s market shares, stock performance and overall history, it doesn’t hurt to do a little research on a potential employer. For example, prior to going on a job interview with a somewhat major company, I first researched them and discovered that  they had declared bankruptcy only a few months prior to my interview.

At the end of the job interview, the asked me if I had any questions, and the first one I asked was related to what I had researched and found. I soon found out that I had gotten the job, but given the employer’s shaky explanation about the bankruptcy issue, I didn’t feel that it was a smart move to accept a job that I could potentially stand to lose within a few months. All of this aside, the following are some great resources for researching your future employer:

1. ThomasNet- great resource for finding out comany information- simply type in the name of the company you are searching for
2. ThomasGlobal- same deal as ThomasNet except bigger
3. Corporate Information (Ci)-Find out financial information about a company as well as info related to earnings and dividends, sales analysis and more.
4. Triangle Business Journal-For those who live in the Research Triangle area of NC, this journal is a great resource for the financial happenings in the business world of North Carolina
5. North Carolina Department of Commerce-Everything that the local business owner needs access to can be found here

Also, when researching companies or trying to find out information, keep the following questions in mind:

• Is the company public or private?
• Is it a local/small company?
• Is it based in another country?
• Is it a subsidiary, division of another company?
• Could this company name really be a brand name or trademark?
• What does this company do/make?