Want Your Dream Job? Identify Your Dream Employer

If you don’t already have a list of your “dream employers,” you can compile one by asking yourself the following questions:

• What industry is my target employer in? 
• What kind of company do I want to work for? (public, private, nonprofit? Startup or well-established company?) 
• Do I want to work for a small company, a larger employer — or somewhere in between? (Identify size by number of employees – 1 to 20, 21 to 50, 51-100, more than 100, more than 500?) 
• Ownership structure: Do I want to work for a family-owned company? A sole proprietorship? A multinational company with an international parent company? A franchise? A company with a centralized ownership group? A corporate entity? 
• Where do I want to work (geographic preferences — like a particular city or state, or even companies within a certain proximity to your home). Do I want to work for a company that offers telecommuting, so it doesn’t matter where I live in relation to where the company is located? 
• What about company culture? (An organization’s culture is defined as “widely shared values that provide unity and cooperation to achieve common goals.”) What is important to me in terms of the company’s mission, commitment to employees, sense of fun, emphasis on learning, leadership style, systems and processes, recruiting/hiring methodology, etc.