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Name

Tison Brokenshire

Updated on 8/25/2026

How to Research a Company Before an Interview Using Public Job Postings

Company research often stops at the About page. You read the mission, skim a press release, and memorize a product description that every other candidate can find in five minutes.

Public job postings offer a more useful angle. They show what work the company is advertising now, which skills appear across teams, where roles are located, and what salary information the employer has chosen or is required to disclose.

The goal is not to reverse-engineer the whole business from a job board. It is to build a short, sourced interview brief that helps you ask better questions and connect your experience to the work in front of you.

The short answer

Research a company before an interview with this workflow:

1. Save the exact posting and the date you accessed it.
2. Extract the responsibilities, required skills, location, and salary wording.
3. Compare the role with other current postings from the same company.
4. Note patterns without treating advertised roles as completed hires.
5. Turn the evidence into a one-page brief and five interview questions.

Keep every observation attached to a URL and date. Job postings change or disappear, so an undated note becomes difficult to verify.

Step 1: Capture the job posting before you summarize it

Start with the role you applied for. Save the URL, title, location, and access date before using an AI tool to summarize anything.

Copy this table into your notes:

If the posting is a screenshot or PDF, extract the text into a draft note, then compare the draft with the original. Our guide to copying text from a picture explains the capture step. Do not discard the source image after extraction.

Step 2: Separate employer language from your interpretation

Job descriptions mix facts, marketing, and broad expectations. Label each kind of statement instead of treating the page as one reliable block of evidence.

This prevents a common interview mistake: repeating an inference as though the company confirmed it.

Use language such as "the posting emphasizes" or "several current postings mention." Avoid "the company is definitely expanding" unless you have a separate source that supports the claim.

Step 3: Look at the company-wide hiring mix

One posting tells you about one advertised role. A set of current postings can show which department and location labels appear most often.

Posted Band is a sister data project developed by our team to preserve public job-posting evidence over time. Its page for current Figma hiring activity (opens in a new tab) brings Figma's public Greenhouse postings into one dated record. The page includes the latest advertised-role count, employer-provided department and location labels, salary-disclosure evidence, source links, and a snapshot history with visible collection gaps.

That page can help you answer questions such as:

• Which teams have the largest current posting footprint?
• Does the company use one location label or several regional variants?
• How often do active postings disclose a parseable salary range?
• Does the role sit inside a department with many other advertised positions?

Use the answers as context, not as a verdict about company health. Posted Band explicitly treats the numbers as advertised roles, not hires, employee headcount, or company performance.

Step 4: Read related postings for shared problems

Open three to five roles near your target role. Choose positions in the same department, reporting line, or product area.

Create a small evidence matrix:

Repeated language gives you a better preparation list than keyword counting alone. If three roles mention experimentation, prepare an example that shows how you formed a hypothesis, selected a metric, and interpreted the result.

Do not assume two similar phrases have the same meaning across departments. Keep the source title beside each note.

Step 5: Handle salary evidence carefully

A posted salary band can help you prepare a compensation question, but the range needs its original context.

Record:

• base salary, on-target earnings, hourly pay, or another measure;
• currency and pay interval;
• location or level covered by the range;
• whether bonus, equity, commission, or benefits are mentioned separately;
• the date and source URL.

Do not silently annualize hourly rates or convert currencies. Do not use the midpoint as a prediction of your offer. A wide range may cover several locations or experience levels.

Turn the evidence into a neutral question:

The posting lists a base salary range of [range] for [scope]. How does the team determine placement within that range, and which parts of compensation sit outside it?

That is stronger than asking whether the company can simply pay the top number.

Step 6: Build a one-page interview brief

Long research notes are hard to use during an interview. Compress the evidence into a page you can scan in a minute.

# Company interview brief
 
## Role
- Title:
- Team:
- Location:
- Posting URL:
- Accessed:
 
## Five verified facts
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
 
## What the posting emphasizes
- Responsibility:
- Skill:
- Outcome:
 
## Current hiring context
- Largest relevant team or department label:
- Related active roles reviewed:
- Salary wording:
- Source date:
 
## My matching evidence
- Story 1:
- Story 2:
- Work sample:
 
## Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
 
## Sources to recheck
- Employer posting:
- Company data page:
- Product or company source:

Five verified facts are enough. More facts do not automatically produce better questions.

Step 7: Turn research into interview questions

Each question should connect one source observation with something the interviewer can clarify.

Ask about the role's real priorities

The posting mentions both [responsibility A] and [responsibility B]. Which one would take more of the person's time during the first three months?

Ask about team boundaries

I noticed several current roles that work across [teams]. How does this role divide ownership with those groups?

Ask about success measures

The role is expected to improve [outcome]. Which metric does the team use to decide whether that work is succeeding?

Ask about a visible hiring pattern

Several current postings mention [skill or problem]. Is that a shared company initiative, or does it mean something different in each team?

The wording matters. You are testing your interpretation, not presenting it as inside knowledge.

A 30-minute company research routine

You do not need an afternoon of browsing before every call.

If the company has hundreds of openings, sample the roles closest to your interview. The purpose is preparation, not a complete labor-market study.

Research limits to keep in the note

Public postings are useful because they are attributable and current. They are also incomplete.

Remember these limits:

• an active posting may already be far along in the interview process;
• one posting can appear under several employer-provided labels;
• a role can close without a hire;
• salary disclosure varies by location and role;
• missing postings do not prove a hiring freeze;
• advertised demand does not establish company performance.

A careful brief preserves those limits. That makes your questions sound informed without overstating what the data can tell you.

Final checklist

Before the interview, confirm that you can answer yes to each item:

• I saved the original posting and access date.
• I can name the three responsibilities the role emphasizes most.
• I prepared two examples that match those responsibilities.
• I kept salary evidence attached to its currency, interval, and location.
• I treated public postings as advertised roles, not completed hires.
• I wrote five questions that ask the interviewer to clarify my interpretation.
• I can recheck every important fact from the source link.

That is enough research to make the interview more specific. You do not need to sound as if you already work there. You need to show that you can read evidence, form a useful question, and connect your experience to the job.