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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:

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?
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.

O.K. If you are ready to go onto the Internet to begin your research, keep a few things in mind...

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!
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!
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://www.uschamber.org.

COMPANY HOMEPAGES

Many companies maintain homepages. Search for the companies home page on any of the major search engines.

CNBC

A listing of companies can be searched by stock symbol, company name or company homepage at [http://moneycentral.msn.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://www.fortune.com]

HOOVER'S ONLINE

Search for company information at no charge or order detailed company reports for a fee. [http://www.hoovers.com]

American City Business Journals

American City Business Journals Inc. is the nation's largest publisher of metropolitan business newspapers, serving 41 of the country's most vibrant markets. The Web site [http://www.bizjournals.com] provides the latest breaking business news, updated throughout the business day in each market. There also are links to each newspaper's home page, with news, information and commentary from each American City market. The archives contain nearly 600,000 local business articles, and our free Industry journals provide the latest news about 46 industries around the country.