How
To Research Employers On The Internet
Crucial to
a successful job search campaign is knowing how to research
potential employers. The more you know about a company, their business
objectives and goals, the better able you will be to communicate your
value to them. You may wish to convey your understanding of their needs in
a tailored resume and cover letter and you will definitely want to
communicate this during your interview. The hard work that you put into
your research will almost always pay off by reflecting your interest and
enthusiasm to employers.
Begin by
trying to locate general information about each company you are interested
in. Focus on details that will relate to your skills, knowledge, and
qualifications. You may wish to develop a filing system to organize the
information that you obtain.
Here
are some ideas to get you started:
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• What is
the age of the company?
• What is their location? How long have they been established there?
• How many locations are there?
• What are the services and products that they sell?
• What is the size of the company?
• How many employees do they have?
• What are their sales? assets? earnings?
• What has their growth pattern been like?
• What are the various divisions and subsidiaries?
• Who are their competitors?
• What are the names of key executives?
• What is the general reputation of the company?
• Is the company publicly or privately owned?
• Is the company foreign owned?
• How successful is the company? What has been their major achievements?
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• Have there been any major issues or events in the recent history of the
company?
• What are the objectives and philosophy of the company?
• What is their forecast of anticipated growth?
You may also want to gather several other items on each company whenever
possible:
• Brochures and sales flyers.
• Magazine and newspaper articles about the company.
• Trade journal articles.
• Press releases.
• Reports from Dunn and Bradstreet and the Better Business Bureau.
• Employer recruitment brochures.
Although
the Internet will be invaluable research resource, your college,
university, or local library is still one of the best places to locate
information. The reference librarian should be able to point you in the
direction of many useful directories and indexes.
Examples
of resources that you will find there are:
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• "Standard & Poor's Corporation Records" - Contains
information about publicly held companies in the USA including financial
records, brief history, products, subsidiaries and properties, and more.
• "World Business Directory" - Profiles of 100,000
businesses worldwide.
• "Ward's Business Directory" - Data on publicly and
privately held companies arranged alphabetically, geographically, and by
sales volume. O.K. If you
are ready to go onto the Internet to begin your research, keep a few
things in mind...
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1. Know
what you are looking for before you go online. Keep a list beside you
so that you can cross items off as you locate them. It is too easy to get
distracted if you do not remain focused!
2. Bookmark major sites as you come across them. Most browsers will
even allow you to create folders or directories to organize the links even
further. Make the effort to stay organized now and you will be glad you
did later on!
3. Print out a hardcopy of important information. If you are
concerned about saving the trees (like I am), you could save a copy of the
document to your hard drive instead.
Because
there are numerous Internet sites that are valuable for conducting
research on employers, it is beyond the scope of this article to list them
all. The links presented below will get you started by pointing you to
some of the best. You will undoubtedly find many other lists of links by
browsing through the sites.
CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE You may want to begin by contacting the
chambers of commerce in the communities your companies are located in. You
will find a searchable comprehensive directory of North American chambers
of commerce at
http://chamber-of-commerce.com/homepage.htm
COMPANY HOMEPAGES Many companies maintain homepages. Locate them
at the Online Career Center's List of Company Homepages (http://www.occ.com/occ/CompanyHomePages.html)
or at JobTrak's Listing of Employer Profiles (http://www.jobtrak.com/profiles).
SECURITIES & EXCHANGE COMMISSION This site provides a searchable
database of financial filings and annual reports of publicly owned
companies. (http://www.jobweb.org/sec.htm)
AMERICAN STOCK EXCHANGE A listing of companies can be searched by
stock symbol, company name or company homepage at (http://www.amex.com/stocks/stocks.htm)
THE
BIG BOOK This is an outstanding resource for finding companies
listed by industry or state.
(http://www.bigbook.com)
FORTUNE 500 Search the Fortune 500 database by company or browse
it by a variety of categories. Provides the Fortune 500 ranking, sales,
profits, and assets. (http://pathfinder.com/@@IQ11nAUAz4kukcPl/fortune)
HOOVER'S ONLINE Search for company information at no charge or
order detailed company reports for a fee.
(http://hoovweb.hoovers.com)
THE
INSIDER'S LIST Information and links to publicly owned companies
on the web. Their searchable database currently holds information on over
2300 companies. (http://networth.galt.com/www/home/equity/irr)
NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION If you are looking for a non-profit
organization, the place to look is the Philanthropy Journal, which has a
meta-index of links. (http://www.philanthropy-journal.org)
U.S.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES Government Agency homepages can be
useful for both research purposes and for finding job-listings. The best
directory is maintained by the LSU Library. (http://www.lib.lsu.edu/gov/fedgov.html)
Contributing Author: Michelle Dumas, CPRW,
NCRW is a nationally certified professional resume writer and the owner
and operator of Distinctive Documents. From an office based in
Somersworth, NH, USA, Distinctive Documents provides comprehensive resume
services to job hunters worldwide. For more information about the services
of Distinctive Documents or to contact the author about this article,
please call (603) 742-3983, send an e-mail message to
support@distinctiveweb.com , or point your browser to
http://www.distinctiveweb.com Copyright ©
Michelle Dumas 1997
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