Your job not only consumes 40+ hours each and every week, but also determines how you invest the remaining hours. Would you think about taking a getaway without the need of any information and facts about your location? Not most likely. Yet lots of base their employment choices on little or no information. Utilizing a combination of sources pointed out in this article will give you an edge in optimizing your job search and satisfaction.
Via firsthand analysis, you will acquire data that goes beyond the selective, frequently superficial, information and facts exchanged through the interview process. The benefits incorporate:
Very first, information and facts about a company’s economic health, hiring/cutback practices, treatment of employees and corporate culture will give a extra realistic image of prospective employers to assistance you make a lot more informed choices.
Second, study will assistance you expand your job possibilities and industry knowledge, as properly as assistance you concentrate your search on the best opportunities, careers, salaries and geographic regions.
Third, Dr Jean Chen will improve your effectiveness for the duration of the interview process, producing a additional prepared impression than an individual who uses job interviews for information gathering.
Get the scoop about employers
When you have identified your target employers, investigate an employer by locating answers to queries about its age…locations…solutions and products…number of employees…size ..divisions and subsidiaries … publicly or privately owned…sales…assets…earnings…competitors…reputation…development pattern, plans and forecast…foreign owned…mission and culture…current events, item launches…key problems…important achievements
Off- and on line sources of information and facts
There’s a vast universe of facts sources-persons, publications and on the web-that can be overwhelming. Because there are countless Online websites and publications for researching info, this article will get you started with some of the most essential resources.
Print and Internet Sources
The reference division of any library provides online databases, CD-ROM products and printed sources such as directories, magazines, journals, newsletters and reports. You can compile lists of employers and search firms, as nicely as data on your target industries and employers through print and on-line resources.
Information on Businesses and Industries
o Directories in Print: lists thousands of company and industrial directories of all forms in any field
o American Business Facts Directory: database of ten million US and one particular million Canadian companies
o US Large Small business Directory: list of companies with one hundred+ workers
o American Suppliers Directory: 500,000 manufacturing organizations can be identified in this directory providing information on headquarters, employee size, branch areas, metro areas and sales volume
o Common & Poor’s Register: 55,000 public and private organizations by area, state, city zip code, area code, product lines, as properly as 400,000 executives and biographies of 70,000 corporate officers and directors
o SEC Documents
o The Large Book: firms are listed by industry or state
o Hoover’s On-line, vault, knowX and dnb: deliver data on corporations as nicely as detailed fee-primarily based company reports
o Thomas Register: 155,000+ organizations listed by trademark and sort of item
o Directory of US Private & Public Companies
o Directory of Corporate Affiliations-US Private: economic and other data on eight,000+ privately held corporations
o Wall Street Investigation: links to business SEC filings, stock quotes and history, news releases, earnings and other data
o Annual Reports: absolutely free service giving links to annual reports of thousands of organizations
o Patents: patent information and facts by invention kind or description
o Vertical Net: has the scoop on a range of industries
Federal Government Agencies and Position Announcements
o US Federal Government Agencies: lists government agency household pages for researching facts and getting job leads
o How to Find Enterprise Intelligence in Washington: identifies sources of data, such as important specialists, in the federal government
News Releases and Publications
o Small business Wire: verify out corporation news releases by market
o On-line and print small business periodicals: Wall Street Journal, Small business Week, Forbes, Market Week, Economic Instances, Chronicle of Higher Education, Fortune, New York Instances, Barron’s, Speedy Business, Institutional Investor, BizJournal and other newspapers and magazines.
o Business internet web-sites: find recent articles and news releases on corporation net web pages that can supply suggestions to prepare informed, nicely-conceived inquiries to ask at the interview
Biographical Information
o Who’s Who directories: a lot of directories listing organization professionals in your field or other industries
o Reference Book of Corporate Management (Dun and Bradstreet): standard biographical data on principal corporate officers and directors you can also conduct a search on “Google” to uncover information and facts on distinct men and women in your target organizations
Skilled Associations
o Encyclopedia of Associations: names and areas of 22,000+ organizations, membership number, speak to information and a lot more
Search Firms
o Directory of Executive Recruiters: contingency and retained search firms listed by sector, geography or specialty
Individuals and Networking
Tap into your current network of contacts, like colleagues or men and women in a field you are researching, to gather data on your target employers. You can uncover new sources of info through on-line chat rooms where you can get suggestions and ask other people for facts. To locate a chat space in your field or any other, check out: Clickit, AboutWork, and TalkCity.
You can also pay a visit to netshare, execunet and 6figurejobs (.com) as sources of career information, job leads and networking activities for executives.
On-line newsgroups are network discussions groups that give opinions and data on a range of topics. Pick one that is associated to your field of interest and start a dialog by posing a question. With newsgroups you can often get immediate responses. Listservs are groups of people who exchange emails about a certain subject or profession. You can discover listservs via liszt and reference (.com). In addition there are on-line networking internet sites such as LinkedIn, Networking For Specialists, ItsNotWhatYouKnow and other people.