Employer Research

            There are many different employers within the Information Technology (IT) and networking industries that one might be interested in working for. As a university student nears the end of his degree program and starts looking for his entry point into the workforce there are many different aspects of a potential employer he might want to consider. A thorough job hunt will consist of a substantial amount of pre-interview research of the company and will improve your chances of finding an employer that is a suitable match, or even improve your odds of being hired by said employer. Here, a list of four different employers from the IT industry has been compiled.

Cisco Meraki

Cisco Meraki is a company that originally started out as a smaller company called Meraki that specialized in providing wireless and enterprise networking solutions to their clients. The company was later acquired by Cisco and was incorporated into their portfolio of products and services. The company is based at 500 Terry A Francois Blvd San Francisco, CA 94158 United States, has a company webpage at https://meraki.cisco.com/, and can be contacted by phone at +1 (888) 490‑0918. Paul Choi serves as their senior technical recruiter. Something that is highly interesting to me about this company is their massive focus on wireless technologies. Wireless networking is one of the most important areas of networking and is likely a corner of the industry that will grow significantly in the coming years. I would be very interested in seeing how Cisco Meraki intends to capitalize on this growing adoption. Some questions I would consider asking during an interview with the company would include what experiences I can have within their company I can’t find elsewhere in the industry pertaining to wireless networks. I would also ask the question of, if hired, what kind of vertical mobility is available within the company.

FireEye

FireEye is a company within the IT industry that focuses on developing and deploying cybersecurity solutions for their clients. While initially, the company’s work mostly consisted developing custom virtual machines that can be used to increase security and logging on a network, they have since expanded their operations to include many hardware security solutions as well. The company is based at 1440 McCarthy Blvd., Milpitas, California 95035 United States, has a company webpage at https://www.fireeye.com/, and can be contacted by phone at +1 (408) 321-6300 Jennifer Villalobos Peyton serves as their manager of talent acquisition. Something that is highly interesting to me about this company is the experience they have in defending against high-profile cyberattacks such as the WannaCry ransomware attack. A question I would consider asking during an interview with the company would include if they hire networking personal who do not have an explicit specialty into cybersecurity. There are many different specialties in the IT industry and oftentimes companies are willing to cross-train from a different specialty if the position being hired for is entry-level.

Lumen

Lumen is a company that is primarily an internet service provider while also providing many other different telecommunications solutions. While you might not recognize its current name, chances are that you’ve heard about it in its previous incarnation as CenturyLink, a massive provider within the industry that went through a rebranding and restructuring. The company is based at 100 CenturyLink Drive Monroe, Los Angeles, CA 71203 United States, has a company webpage at https://www.lumen.com, and can be contacted by phone at +1 (800)-871-9244. Stephanie Szymanski serves as their Lead Human Resources Business Partner. Something that interests me about this company is the fact that in a lot of ways, they are a more traditional internet service provider (ISP) and as such could serve as a vast wealth of knowledge and experience for somebody that is fresh into the industry. However, this lack of a particular focus also makes them slightly less appealing from a career standpoint as having a specialty is more marketable for a worker then just general knowledge. A question that I would ask the company in an interview would be in what sort of directions I could take my career within the company and how much vertical and horizontal mobility there is.

Spectrum

Spectrum is the branded name of the company Charter Communications. As another more traditional ISP, the company is the second largest operator of fiber optic cabling within the United States. They focus on providing internet connectivity across the regions which they operate. The company is based at 400 Atlantic Street Stamford, CT 06901 United States, has a company webpage at https://www.spectrum.com/, and can be contacted by phone at +1 (855)-707-7328. Trevin Taber serves as one of their senior recruiters. Something that is highly interesting to me about this company is all the controversies that surround the company. They also are not particularly known for providing the best service to their companies and have been entangled in a number of major lawsuits over the years. Most of these factors serve as red flags that this company might not be the type of company an entry level candidate really would like to be hired on at if they have any alternative choices.

References

Experiences Start Here. (NA). Cisco Meraki. Retrieved September 19, 2021, from https://meraki.cisco.com/

Contact Us. (NA). Cisco Meraki. Retrieved September 19, 2021, from https://meraki.cisco.com/form/contact/

Why FireEye? (NA). FireEye. Retrieved September 19, 2021, from https://www.fireeye.com/company.html

Contact FireEye (NA). FireEye. Retrieved September 19, 2021, from https://www.fireeye.com/company/contact-us.html

Edge Computing for the 4^th Industrial Revolution (NA). LUMEN. Retrieved September 19, 2021, from https://www.lumen.com/en-us/home.html

About Us (NA). LUMEN. Retrieved September 19, 2021, from https://www.lumen.com/en-us/about.html

Contact Us (NA). LUMEN. Retrieved September 19, 2021, from https://www.lumen.com/en-us/contact-us.html

We are a Connectivity Company (NA). Charter Communications. Retrieved September 19, 2021, from https://corporate.charter.com/

This is Spectrum (NA). Charter Communications. Retrieved September 19, 2021, from https://corporate.charter.com/about-charter