I believe that it’s a good idea to keep a wish list of companies that you’d love to work for. This is not just to make sure you keep an eye out for opportunities at these companies, but also to discover what it is that makes you want to work at these companies. This makes it easier to chose other jobs that have some of those same qualities.
Your wish list also guides you to make decisions that open up opportunities at these companies, whether that talking to your work collegues about what it would be like to work there, or doing a LinkedIn search to see if anyone in your ‘network’ already works there.
Your wish list doesn’t even need to be realistic. None of the companies on my list are based in Brisbane, and only two are even based in Australia. I’m pretty much set on living in Brisbane; I love it for many reasons. The main reason is the proximity to my family and inlaws. At the moment, no job could be better than that.
But here’s my list:
- Threadless: I think this article pretty much sums it up. I also love this other quote about when they were deciding on how to make more money: We’re like, “we should give them stickers because stickers are awesome.”
- Atlassian: They make rock solid products (Confluence, JIRA…), aren’t afraid to take on the big players, and strongly support open source. I also love their mission and culture.
- Automattic: – Any wordpress user would know why I would love to work for Automattic. They advertise jobs such as Happiness Engineer and state that… everyone who joins Automattic, regardless of position, does support for 3 weeks.
- The Big Issue: Not only do The Big Issue support a great cause: homelessness in Australia, but the magazine is a really good read too. There’s no other mag that I enjoy reading more. This is truly a dream job though – they only have a full time staff of… three!
- 37Signals: Who wouldn’t want to work with the creators of ruby on rails and the authors of Getting Real? They also write one of my favourite blogs. But the real reason is that they really dig writing skills, and I dig that.
Great list. 37signals is all action and some talk for the benefit of the community.
Thanks for the kind comments about Atlassian which I am reading around the world in Amsterdam right now. Much appreciated, mate — Jeffrey http://www.radiowalker.com
Thank you, the rest of us in the Big Issue organisation are proud of the editorial team and how they pull it off fortnightly… without their efforts there wouldn’t be a quality magazine for the vendors to go out and sell, and that’s what it’s all about! thanks for noticing, cheers, Anna
18 months later, and my list is basically the same, showing these are truly timeless organizations.