Researching employers is a practice which is key to student success in interviewing and landing the role you seek. It’s the equivalent of completing a literature review prior to writing a paper or conducting consumer research before a large purchase/investment.
The obvious place to begin is to google the company or organization web site. Also look at competitor company web sites. Information about companies and their competitors can be gained from industry resources; list servs; assistance from the Georgia Tech librarians, who can help you access a wealth of resources; and faculty; and Tech alums.
You are seeking objective information about the company or organization, so be sure to go beyond the company web site and sources where they may have paid to be listed.
It’s helpful for you to know the company’s major focus of specialization or industry, as well as learning if the company has an intrapreneurial effort, a start-up within the larger company.
Knowing the size of the company, by revenue and by size of workforce, can help you create questions – in a larger company your role may be more specialized. In a smaller organization you may be required/expected to perform in a variety of roles. Which is a better fit for you? Your questions in an interview reflect the quality of your research and recruiters will be assessing how that demonstrated behavior can make you an effective employee, be it intern, co-op or full time.
Identify Georgia Tech alums on LinkedIn who currently work for that employer. Reach out to the alum(s) and let them know you are researching the company. Once they accept your invitation to LinkIn ask if you can chat with them about their experience there (coffee chat or otherwise).
Follow companies on. That’s information they want you to know, and it adds to your bank of knowledge. Career Center Corporate Partners are valued companies and will be glad to help you learn about their work.
Campus career fairs and information and/or tabling sessions are also great opportunities to interact with recruiters, observing company culture as demonstrated in their interactions with students, faculty, and staff. Do your research before in-person interactions so your questions move your research process forward more directly.
to start., a resource on the Career Center website under CareerTools, can help you get a sense of where the company falls in size with others in the industry. (formerly Vault) is another resource on the Career Center website under CareerTools. The site ranks companies in a number of industries, and has practical downloadable guides for industries.
The Georgia Tech library is the best resource for in-depth research and there is a research librarian for every college at Georgia Tech. Below are two of the resources they can help with and they know about multiple other resources.
- Atlanta area companies can be researched through BusinessWise, which catalogues information about the business press articles/events on the company for the most recent two years. From this information you may spot trends of growth or where they could use student expertise.
- Hoovers, acquired by Dun and Bradstreet, is another well-known business directory for broad information about companies.
For non-profits research on Idealist.org, and for governmental entities check with their web site and
