[rockostrich]

I don't think the comparison to applying to jobs works. When applying to jobs you have a pretty sizable knowledge of the companies. When online dating, you know very little about each person (the amount of data varies greatly depending on the service and person). You can't know if you're going to like someone until you meet them in person, but you can have a pretty good idea of whether or not you're going to like a company by researching online.

[wolco]

If the dating site allows publicly linking to social media profiles or if you have a real name/number you can do a little research. Identifying common interests or topics to avoid can be helpful.

In my experience you don't really know if you are going to like the new job until after you have been working for a period of time. Research can give you clues but sometimes judging what the position will be like by how it sounds or by what you think you want can backfire. Many times the job changes the moment you are hired or shortly after. The only constant I've found is if you don't have a phone on your desk you will have time to actually do the work which will generally make most people happier.