Target Company List for Your Job Search: How to Build One

A target company list is a short, written list of the companies you actually want to work for, with their career pages and notes in one place. It turns a vague "I'm looking for a job" into a finite set of places to watch, people to talk to and postings to catch early. Here's how to build a list of 30 to 50 companies in an evening or two: what criteria to use, where to find candidates, how to check what hiring system each company uses, and how to keep an eye on all of them.

Why a list helps when the search feels endless

Scrolling job boards is reactive: you see whatever the board decides to show you. A list flips that around.

• You can watch the source. Most tech companies publish roles on their own careers page first, so a list tells you exactly which pages to check. We explain why in the hidden job market in tech.
• Referrals get easier. Once you know the companies, you can look for former colleagues and friends who work there.
• Your applications get better. You'll know each company's product and team before a role opens, so tailoring takes minutes rather than an evening.
• It gives you a sense of progress. Even in a quiet week you can research one company or send one message.

Why 30 to 50 companies

There's no magic number. It's a working range. With ten companies, a quiet month can leave you with nothing to apply to. With two hundred, you can't remember anything about them and you're back to scrolling. Somewhere between 30 and 50 is usually enough to see a steady trickle of relevant roles while still knowing each company by name. If your role is rare or you need a specific city, lean towards the higher end.

Step 1: set your criteria

Write these down before you start collecting names, or the list fills up with famous companies you'd never actually join.

Must-haves (a company fails if it misses any):

1. They can hire where you live. Remote within your region, or an office in a city you'd work from. Check this first; it's the most common dead end. See remote IT jobs open to Europe.
2. Your role exists there. A company with no QA team won't hire a QA engineer.
3. Working language you're comfortable with.

Nice-to-haves (use them to rank, not to exclude): product area you care about, company stage, team size, tech stack, domain experience that transfers, such as fintech or developer tools.

Step 2: find candidate companies

Aim for 60 to 80 names at first; some will drop out in step 3.

• Where former colleagues went. Look at the profiles of people you've worked with. Each move is a company that hires people like you, plus a warm contact.
• Tools you use every day. If you've spent years in Sentry, Grafana, Figma or Supabase, you already know the product better than most applicants.
• Competitors and neighbours of your current or last employer.
• Remote boards. Browse Remotive, Himalayas or Wellfound for your role and note which company names keep coming up.
• Engineering blogs, conference talks and open-source projects. Companies that write publicly about their work are easier to research.
• Local communities. Meetup sponsors and the companies people mention in local tech chats.

Step 3: check each company's careers page and hiring system

For each name, find the careers page and note how it's run. The address usually tells you:

• greenhouse.io → Greenhouse
• jobs.lever.co/company → Lever
• jobs.ashbyhq.com/company → Ashby
• the company's own domain → look for the provider's name at the bottom of the application form

Knowing the system lets you bookmark the job board directly and recognise original postings. More on this in what Greenhouse, Lever and Ashby are.

While you're there, look at what's open now. Are there roles like yours? What do the location lines say? A company whose last ten postings all say "Remote - US" probably fails your first must-have.

Step 4: put it in a sheet

A spreadsheet is enough. These columns cover what you'll need:

Tiers keep your energy in the right place. A: you'd accept an offer tomorrow, and you'd tailor heavily. B: good fit, standard tailoring. C: worth watching, apply only to clear matches. You can use the same sheet as your job application tracker.

Step 5: monitor without living in tabs

1. Bookmark all careers pages in one folder and open it on fixed days, for example Monday and Thursday.
2. Set alerts where you can. Some boards and tools notify you about new roles; use them for the companies you check least.
3. Search by several titles on each board. The same job may be called Backend Engineer at one company and Software Engineer, Platform at another.
4. Review the list every few weeks. Drop companies that haven't posted anything relevant for a couple of months, and add new ones you've noticed.

For ideas on getting notified about particular employers, see alerts for specific companies.

Common mistakes

• Only big names. Famous companies get the most applicants. Mix in smaller companies you'd be just as happy at.
• Skipping the location check. A list full of US-only employers looks impressive and produces nothing.
• Building it once and never touching it. The list is a living document. Companies start and stop hiring.

If some of your list overlaps with the 390+ companies whose career pages Hot Jobs checks, such as GitLab, Datadog, Monzo, SumUp, JetBrains or Miro, the bot can watch those boards for you every 30 minutes and send new roles matching your chosen titles and regions to Telegram. The rest stays in your bookmark folder. €3, paid once. Connect the bot