How to Find Out Where Someone Works

1. 5 Reasons to Find Out Where People Work
2. 10 Methods To Find Where Someone Works
3. Conclusion
4. FAQ

There are times when you need to know where a person works. But what do you do if running a simple Google search or checking their LinkedIn doesn’t help? Today, we will take a look at some ways you can find someone's place of employment.

5 Reasons to Find Out Where People Work

There are many reasons why you would want to find a person's workplace for both personal and legal purposes. Let’s have a look at the top 5 reasons to find out where people work:

1. Get to Know More About Your New Date

It is always a wise decision to check your potential partner before going on a date, irrespective of whether you’ve met them online or through a friend. The reality is that a lot of people lie about their occupation as they want to appear more attractive or even conceal the fact that they are unemployed. Or maybe you have already been on a date with someone and want to send flowers to their office? How romantic!

By the way, check out these ten tips for first dates that we have prepared for you in our Best Online Dating Advice 2022.

2. Check Out Acquaintances and New Friends

You may have met someone at a bar and forgot where they work and want to remove the awkwardness of having to ask again. Or you may wish to verify the workplace of a new person offering you some common business to avoid scams and illegal activities. Maybe someone is helping you buy a car at a big discount and wants $500 upfront? Wouldn’t you want to know if he really represents the dealership?

There are plenty of reasons to get employment information on acquaintances and newly found friends. After all, you would want to end up with a trusted new friend, not a newly earned enemy.

3. Discover More About Your Relatives

Whether you want to explore your genealogy and build a family tree or simply want to know who uncle Todd is - checking workplace records could open up exciting new insights on your family and distant relatives.

One of the first steps in locating lost relatives is tracking down their workplace. Read more about how to find lost family members in our article on How to Find Lost Relatives.

4. Locate Someone Who Owes You Money

We’ve all encountered this situation at least once in our lifetime. People borrow money and vanish, cutting off any means of communication. This is a widespread issue and happens to the best of us - people take advantage of kindness. Another common scenario is trying to find your ex for child support payments.

It’s easy to turn off your phone, change your number, ignore or block someone on social media. It is much harder to switch jobs often or hide official employment at a workplace. Whether you need to take legal action or simply want to locate this person to give them a visit for a civilized conversation - knowing their current workplace is critical.

5. Find Freelance Workers

In 2021, the world’s workforce has gone digital. This means that there are thousands of skilled professionals being hired daily for full and part-time remote jobs. Unfortunately, there are companies taking advantage of this by charging abysmal fees as an intermediary for simply connecting two people together.

You can save huge cash on hiring fees by doing the research yourself to find full employment history of an individual to get their references and current contact information like phone number and email address.

10 Methods To Find Where Someone Works

Okay, we get it - knowing the real workplace of a person is important for a number of reasons. But what are the available options? There are some effective paid services as well as ways you can do this yourself without spending a penny. Keep reading to find out.

1. Interview Others

This is by far the most effective free way to find out where someone is employed. Of course, you will be collecting feedback on an individual from word-of-mouth sources, so you cannot solely rely on this method, but you will get a good indication of where to look further if multiple people state the same workplace. You could then verify the data using other methods described below to ensure that the given information is correct.

Who to interview:

• Common people you both know
• Friends and family members of that person
• Their spouse or partner
• Next-door neighbors
• Previous employers or coworkers
• People they did business with

Be sure to proceed with caution when interviewing other people and choose words carefully as you do not want to seem like you are stalking anyone. Use this method only with trusted individuals or sources as interviewed people may pass on to the search subject that you are asking around.

2. Hit The Search Engines

Sometimes a simple online search is all it takes to locate where someone is employed. Online search engines work best if your search subject has a unique name. Otherwise, you may get stuck browsing through 173 pages of search results on Google trying to find relevant information. Try using alternative search engines that allow you to refine your search in such a way that the top 100,000 websites are eliminated from search results (unless you are looking for a celebrity). We recommend using https://millionshort.com/, which allows you to fine-tune your request to access deeper results from the web.

If you are looking for a person who is self-employed, a business owner, or a freelancer, then running a quick search online may provide the best results, as most likely they have a website dedicated to their services. Try including any information you already have on the person, like the school they went to, a hobby they have, an organization they participated in, or the city or street they live on.

Using search engines is one possible way to find out where a person works for free, but there is one hidden cost: your time.

3. Go For LinkedIn

LinkedIn is virtually the most reputable online platform that connects professionals across the globe. This would be the number one social media site to go if you want to track down where someone works on the internet. LinkedIn is great for finding people that work regular 9 to 5 as most likely that they have a professional profile set up to grow their network.

Make sure that you turn on private viewing mode if you want to browse discreetly as LinkedIn logs and notifies users who viewed their profile. You may also have to send a connection request to the person first, as many users adjust their privacy settings to display workplace-related information only to their connections.

Again, knowing someone’s current workplace as stated in their LinkedIn profile does not guarantee that this information is legitimate or correct. Their formal position may differ, and the profile info may be outdated. Still, this provides an opportunity to ask around former employers or coworkers about the company that they have moved to.

4. Give Facebook a Try

Facebook is the next place to look if you have tried LinkedIn, and that didn’t work. Facebook actively encourages users to specify their employment information, and the social media profiles there tend to be the most complete. The great thing about Facebook is that it does not notify other users that their profile was viewed (unlike LinkedIn) and the sheer speed at which you can check if a user is registered.

Just note that similar to LinkedIn, depending on a specific user’s privacy settings, the About section in their profile may be hidden or restricted to friends. If you do have access to view the user’s profile but cannot seem to find the current workplace listed, try looking through their photos and check-ins - they may not have explicitly specified their workplace but may have accidentally shared this information by taking pictures at work or checking in in the office.

As far as social media goes - Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok are probably the less likely places to yield results on employment information.

5. Search Resume Records

You can search for a person’s resume online to find the previous employers listed on their CV and reach out to them to see if they know anything about where the person may currently be working. Most resumes also contain contact information like phone numbers and email addresses, which also could be helpful if you need that information.

There are many resume databases out there that could provide you with a person’s current CV, but we would like to point out a few that are either completely free or those that have a free trial:

• https://www.upwork.com/search/profiles/ - Upwork is one of the largest job-related platforms that offers a free search for freelancers to hire
• https://www.fiverr.com/search/users - Fiverr is another good resource for freelance and part-time professionals with a free search
• https://www.behance.net/search/users - Behance is a similar platform with a stronger focus on designers and workers of the visual arts that could be found for free
• https://www.livecareer.com/resume-search/ - LiveCareer offers a good resume database for more general professions and also contains a free search
• https://www.flexjobs.com/search - Flexjobs is another service to go to if you need to find a person with a general profession for free
• https://www.postjobfree.com/ - PostJobFree (as the name implies) allows you to post a job and browse listed resumes for free
• https://www.lusha.com/ - Lusha is a lead generation and prospecting tool that will enable you to filter resumes by name and get results from multiple sources that contain that name. Lusha has a free trial but then costs $99 per month.

6. Access The Government Employer Databases

All employers are required to report new hires to local governments, and this data is stored. This means that there is a searchable database that allows finding employers and people who work for them. Some city and state governments have online search tools, with others, you will have to go to the office and file a request in person. Try searching for your local government employer database to see if they offer online data access.

You may need to have the person’s social security number before you for this option, as the process most likely won’t start until you have an SSN. If you file a request in person, you may also be requested to prove that you are a party to an investigation and that the person you are looking for is a debtor. There is also a cost associated with searching government databases, but it’s usually minimal.

7. Check The Local Court

If the person you are looking for has an arrest record, then the workplace information will be listed on it. Arrest records are public information that could be openly accessed by filling out a request form at your local courthouse. Of course, this heavily depends on the state of arrest as sometimes this information is not shared between jurisdictions. Still, in general, this would be a great option if you want to both find out the person’s address and see if he has had any arrests or criminal records.

7. Run an SSN Check With Social Security

The SSA (Social Security Administration) holds tax-related information on all employers and employees. Each employer has an EIN (Employer Identification Number), while each employee has an SSN (Social Security Number). You can access the SSA to file a request to verify a person’s SSN and then, using the results, trace the EIN of the employer to find out under what name the workplace is registered. Needless to say, you would need to know the person’s social security number to move forward with this method.

Go to the SSA website and log in to the SSNVS (Social Security Number Verification Service) https://www.ssa.gov/employer/ssnv.htm. You will need to register first and use the activation code to activate your account. Once you receive the results of the SSNVS check, you will obtain an EIN of the person’s current employer. A simple Google search will uncover what company is registered under that EIN. A detailed tutorial on how to run an SSN check can be found here https://www.ssa.gov/employer/SSNVS.pdf.

8. Hire a Private Investigator

If you’re really serious about finding out where someone works, you could consider hiring a professional for the job. Private investigators are exceptionally skilled at gathering information that otherwise would be inaccessible to the regular public by utilizing all available databases and resources. They will also gladly run through paper archives, go to county courthouses and search a ton of non-digitized records, as long as you have the cash to keep them working.

Hiring a private investigator may not be the cheapest option, as their work could cost well over $1000. Many private investigators work on a retainer basis which means that you would have to pay them upfront before they even step out of the office. They may also request a fixed number of minimum working hours to ensure that they are decently compensated before taking the job. Furthermore, any associated costs like fuel, surveillance, or paid access to databases would have to be covered by you.

Private investigators are one of the most discreet and effective ways to find out someone's employer if you don’t have the time to do the digging yourself, but even if you have spare cash lying around, the end bill may be quite a lot for just finding out where someone works.

10. Use People Search Sites

If you ever wondered how to find out where someone works online without the need to spend countless hours digging through endless search results, then people search sites may be your best option. This method combines together all of the options listed above, by aggregating social media and search engine data and providing direct access to government databases and archives, but has a much lower cost than hiring a private investigator.

The best thing about this approach is that it’s completely anonymous, and you don’t need much information to start with; you can search to see where someone works by their name and narrow down results to specify the exact person. There are multiple people search sites that allow you to find someone's employer that you can choose from.

Conclusion

Finding something like workplace records is relatively easy with free services and paid online tools in the digital age. People tend to fill out their profiles on social media with places they work (especially if they are proud of their career and employment history). For self-employed and freelance workers running a Google search works best, as they most likely have a website dedicated to their services, while for regular 9 to 5 workers, LinkedIn is the place to start.

Still, things may get a bit more complicated if the person is secretive about their current place of employment. Luckily, there are still options to find out where someone works from public records even without the person’s consent.

Multiple brick-and-mortar services allow you to file a request in person to obtain government or archive records with official employment information, or if you want to run an anonymous workplace search, you can hire a private investigator or use people search sites to get complete details on someone’s employment history without them knowing.

People search sites are designed specifically to remove the hassle of searching for information on a person of interest and are the easiest to use when it comes to finding someone’s current workplace records. They also contain a much more considerable amount of useful information in a report to get a broader picture of the search subject.

Also, check out this great article on how to find where someone works for more ideas.

FAQ

For complete peace of mind, use the services of a private investigator or people search sites that do not share your information with any third party and are completely anonymous.