Researching an employer before you apply
Most candidates research a company for about ten minutes, all of it on the company's own website, and then walk into an interview knowing exactly what the marketing team wanted them to know. An hour spent properly changes what you apply to, what you ask, and what you accept — and it is the cheapest way to avoid a job you will leave inside a year.
What is actually worth finding out
How the company makes money, in one sentence. If you cannot write it down, you do not understand the business, and it will show in the interview. Look for who pays, for what, and how often.
Whether the team you would join is growing or shrinking. Headcount trends in a function tell you more about your prospects than any statement about culture. Job postings over the last year, and departures over the last six months, are both visible if you look.
How they made money last year and whether that is changing. A company mid-pivot hires differently, promotes differently and fires differently from one that is executing a settled plan.
Who you would report to. The single largest predictor of whether you enjoy the job. Find out their name, how long they have been in the role, and whether they were promoted in or hired in.
Where to look
Annual reports and filings for anything listed — dull, and the only source with a legal obligation to be accurate. Product changelogs and engineering blogs, which reveal what is actually being built rather than what is being announced. Court and regulator records for the industries where those matter. Local press, which covers layoffs and site closures long before the trade press does.
Review sites are worth reading for pattern rather than verdict: one furious review means nothing, the same specific complaint from eleven people in the same function over two years means something. Note the date and the department on every review you weigh.
And talk to a person. One twenty-minute conversation with someone who left the team eighteen months ago will beat every written source on this list. People say yes to these requests far more often than candidates expect.
Questions that get real answers
Vague questions get press releases. Specific ones get information. Ask what the last person in this role went on to do. Ask what would make the first six months a failure. Ask how the team decided its current priorities and who disagreed. Ask what has changed since the reorganisation — there is almost always a reorganisation. Ask when someone was last promoted out of this team, and how long they had been in the role.
Listen for whether the answers are specific. An interviewer who cannot name a single example is telling you something, whether or not they mean to.
Signals worth taking seriously
A hiring process that keeps adding stages. Salary that will not be discussed until the final round. Three people in the same role in two years. Interviewers who have not read your CV. An enthusiasm for describing the team as a family. Unpaid "test projects" that look suspiciously like billable work. None of these is fatal on its own; two or three together usually mean the job is what it looks like.
When you have the research, use it: the questions above belong in your interview prep, and the offer stage is where knowing the business finally pays for the hour you spent.