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I'd like to apply for a job at a company I haven't worked yet.

Which is the correct preposition?

  • At your company ____ I appreciate(/like) your high standard of quality, your effort to provide a higher standard of life and your global success.
  • In your company ____ I appreciate(/like) your high standard of quality, your effort to provide a higher standard of life and your global success.
  • About your company ____ I appreciate(/like) your high standard of quality, your effort to provide a higher standard of life and your global success.

(____ stands for the company's name.)

I tried to use Ngram Viewer, but with no success. May be I should use another free corpus. Please tell me if you know one.

(This new question is somehow similar to an old one: "Position in/at/for your company")

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2 Answers 2

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It will be easier to determine if you simplify the wording:

  • At your company, I like your quality.
  • In your company, I like your quality.
  • About your company, I like your quality.

First decide what it is that you are modifying with these prepositional phrases. The third one is immediately eliminated. "I like about your company" and "the quality about your company" make no sense. (But, note that it's perfectly fine to say, "What I like about your company is...")

In considering the other two options: If you are talking about your appreciation, I would use "at your company"; if you are talking about the location of the quality, I would use "in your company." Both sound acceptable to my ear in the context of the sentence, although I acknowledge it's a bit subjective.

Looking back at the original sentence, I would use "In your company...", although I profess to not be able to give a great reason why it sounds better to me than "At your company..."

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    I agree that "in" or even "within" sound better for no obvious reason. I would also move the entire clause to the end of the sentence, e.g. "I admire the high standard of quality, effort to provide a higher standard of living and global success achieved by your company."
    – Josh
    Commented Nov 2, 2015 at 20:28
  • @Josh I like your sentence. If I don't use "... by your company" would you prefer "within your company" more than "in your company"?
    – laminin
    Commented Nov 2, 2015 at 20:51
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    @laminin, "within" sounds better to my ear, though I don't think either is more correct than the other. As this post explains, "within" is generally less specific than "in". Perhaps it sounds better to me because in the context you provided, you aren't sure which specific people/departments are responsible for the qualities you admire. For what it's worth, probably the best end for the sentence is "...success your company has achieved." This is more active and thus generally considered easier/more pleasant to read.
    – Josh
    Commented Nov 2, 2015 at 21:22
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I don't think any of them work. I think they may all be dangling modifiers. You might consider, "I like your company's quality standards and its effort to provide a higher standard of life."

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    This is certainly a more natural-sounding construction, and one that I would prefer over the examples cited in the question. +1 (except that I'm out of votes for the day, sorry!)
    – Nonnal
    Commented Nov 2, 2015 at 20:29

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