research-a-company

name	research-a-company
category	get-hired
description	Build a dated, source-backed company and role brief for an application, interview, networking conversation, or offer decision. Use when someone asks what to know about an employer, wants company research before an interview, or needs to assess a role without relying on marketing copy.

research-a-company

Create a decision aid, not a pile of search results. Separate what the company says, what independent sources report, what employees describe, and what remains unknown.

Inputs

• Obtain the exact company, role, location, job posting, research deadline, and person's priorities.
• Ask which questions the brief must support: applying, interviewing, networking, or accepting an offer.
• Use current sources and record access dates because leadership, funding, products, and openings change.

Procedure

1. Save the full job description and extract responsibilities, requirements, reporting clues, location, compensation, and language that needs verification.
2. Build a source plan: official site and filings, product documentation, current leadership pages, reputable reporting, customer evidence, and relevant employee or candidate accounts.
3. Verify company identity, ownership, headquarters, business model, products, customers, size range, major recent events, and stated strategy. Cite the source and date for each material fact.
4. Map the role to the product and organization. Identify likely collaborators, outcomes, tools, constraints, and evidence the candidate should prepare.
5. Compare claims across independent sources. Mark conflicts, missing dates, and facts inferred from several signals rather than stated directly.
6. Look for risk signals relevant to the person's priorities: layoffs, repeated reorganization, regulatory issues, unclear funding, leadership churn, unrealistic role breadth, or compensation gaps.
7. Treat reviews and social posts as anecdotes. Look for repeated, recent patterns and preserve counterexamples rather than averaging sentiment into a false fact.
8. Produce tailored interview questions whose answers would resolve the most important unknowns.
9. Write a one-page brief with company, product, role, recent context, fit evidence, risks, questions, and a source list.
10. Re-check the job posting and top time-sensitive facts shortly before the conversation.

Boundaries

Do not infer protected characteristics, private personal details, or confidential company information. Do not contact employees, submit applications, or represent the person without permission. Never turn an unverified allegation into a factual claim.

Done

• A dated company brief answers the person's actual application, interview, or offer decision
• Every material factual claim links to a current source, with official and independent sources distinguished
• Role-fit evidence, risk signals, contradictions, and unknowns are visibly separated
• A short question list targets the highest-value unknowns for the next conversation

Then use tailor-resume for the application or prepare-a-technical-interview for the role-specific practice loop.