Both must be viewed with some suspicion, since they can be one-sided. Executive biographies posted on Web sites may also be helpful. The trouble is that these people may be several layers above the person you'll be working for, so the information may not be relevant. But if you're lucky enough to be interviewed by one of these people, the information could help. For example, if you share an area of expertise with the interviewer, find a way to bring that up during the conversation, says Mike Natan, CIO at Reliance National Insurance Co. in New York and Reliance Insurance Co. in Philadelphia.
Interviews can also be a source of information.
John Carroll, a Web developer with a master's degree in computer science and eight years of experience, last summer chose a new dot-com job based on what he could glean from the Web and his friends, plus some shrewd observations of his own about the Web sites of prospective employers. Carroll's situation points up an interesting problem for today's IT job seekers, who are often faced with multiple offers but are then left to their own devices to make the right choice. I would get up early in the morning and look at these Web sites to see what I liked the best. And I knew that they were so small a company and so bleeding edge that I would be the one there at 5 a.m. every morning. I decided that I did not want to be the one responding to a pager at 4 a.m., because I did that earlier in my career.