How to research a company before an interview

Start with five research questions

Define what you need to understand before opening dozens of tabs.

Add role-specific questions. A finance candidate may study revenue drivers and cost structure. A designer may focus on user journeys and product principles. An operations candidate may examine markets, partners, and service constraints.

• What does the company sell, to whom, and what problem does it solve?
• How does the company create and capture value?
• What appears to matter most in its current strategy?
• How would this role contribute to those priorities?
• What important uncertainties should I test during the interview?

Use a source hierarchy

Start with direct, current material, then use outside sources for context and competing interpretations.

Record the date and link for time-sensitive claims. If two sources conflict, keep the uncertainty visible rather than selecting the version that best supports your preferred story.

• Company website, product pages, documentation, pricing, careers pages, and official values.
• Public filings, investor presentations, earnings material, and regulator records when applicable.
• Official executive interviews, product announcements, engineering posts, and research publications.
• Customer reviews, user communities, industry publications, and credible competitor material.
• Employee commentary as a source of hypotheses, not universal truth.

Understand the product and customer journey

Experience the product directly when practical and legal. Observe the full journey, including recovery and support.

• Identify the primary user, buyer, and other affected groups.
• Map discovery, evaluation, onboarding, core use, payment, support, and return.
• Note the value moment and the most visible friction.
• Compare promises in marketing with the actual experience.
• Consider trust, privacy, accessibility, reliability, and operational dependencies.

Map the business and competitive context

You do not need a complete market report. You need enough context to understand the team's likely tradeoffs.

• Revenue model, pricing logic, major customer segments, and route to market.
• Important cost, supply, regulatory, or platform dependencies.
• Direct competitors, substitutes, and the cost of doing nothing.
• Recent launches, market entries, partnerships, acquisitions, or leadership changes.
• Capabilities or assets that may create a credible advantage.

Connect company research to the role

Turn general facts into a role-specific preparation map.

For each major company priority, ask how the role could contribute, which skill it would require, and what evidence from your experience is relevant. Do not claim that you know the team's confidential roadmap. Use language such as this suggests, one possibility is, and I would want to validate.

• Write three reasons the role is attractive based on the actual work.
• Select four experiences that map to likely challenges.
• Prepare one informed hypothesis you can discuss carefully.
• List concerns or unknowns that should affect your own decision.

Create a one-page company research brief

Compress the research so it can be recalled under interview pressure.

• Company in one sentence: customer, problem, product, and business model.
• Three current priorities with sources and dates.
• Two customer or product observations.
• Role scorecard and your matching evidence.
• Five interview questions grouped by interviewer.
• Three uncertainties, risks, or assumptions to validate.