Company research - business news

When conducting research about a company it is important to consult sources of information from the three main types (a graphic and overview are in part 1 of this series.) One of the best places to start is information from sources that fall into the category of Business News. Typical free sources of this information are the websites of the major publications (Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, etc.) The problem with these sources is that they mainly focus on current events, and are harder to focus searching on specific companies (unless they are in the news currently...). This kind of search can be important to prepare for an interview or communication with your company of interest, but for a more conclusive search databases that contain deep collections of these types of publications allow for more complete picture of the company.

In part 2 of this series I provided information about how residents of most every state has access to these types of databases. At my FPOW (former place of work) I helped students prepare for job searches and interviews. These resources played a crucial role, I taught the students best practices for searching them and how to best use the information they find.

Tips:

1. When searching a subscription database, all results will be high quality. Therefore, simple 'google like' searches will result too many hits. Instead of just searching for "Ford" or even "Ford Motor Company" you want to include some additional key words that help narrow to the type of work you may be seeking. For example "Ford Motor Company AND financing" or "Ford Motor Company AND sales trends"

2. With all the information you find in your search you will always want to determine how best to integrate that into your interview responses or how to match it to your skills and abilities. For example if your search for "Ford AND financing" resulted in articles describing how they have changed or adapted... or mentions methods that you have studied or have knowledge about, then these are things worth mentioning in either interviews or other communications with the company.

3. Another angle to explore, is to search for information about the companies competitors. If you find news about GM or Toyota for example while searching for information about Ford... pay attention. You can also try to work in those articles into your communications.

4. Try to avoid using only national or local sources of information... if all your information comes from one geographic area and some important is happening elsewhere that is affecting the company you may miss it. I typically recommended searching in publications based in the geographic region of the company's headquarters as well as the location you plan/hope to work.

These basic tips for searching business news databases should help to not only narrow searches, but also to analyze the results that you find. If you use any of these tips and have positive results please share.

Interviewing respect... it works both ways!

I want to start by pointing job searchers to this great article from Matthew Swyers from Inc. Magazine about 5 tips for great job interviews. In it he gives five tips for candidates to follow to help show respect for them selves and the interviewing organization. Most are common sense, but since this author (a company owner) and all the college career specialist I used to work with all give similar advice then these must be things that many job candidates are missing.

Now to the piece about respect working both ways.

Mr. Swyers mentioned through out  his piece the various errors a candidate can make that will cause him to throw out their application material. While I am grateful for the candid advice, I hope that he doesn't mean he literally throws them out without some contact of the candidate. Unfortunately I have had too many positions for which I have applied that I have gotten absolutely no contact. What do others think? Is it disrespectful of the employer to never contact the candidate? Is it just a function of them hundreds of applications they receive and the premium of their time?  If so, is that ok?

Company Research part 2

A few weeks ago I began what will be a series of posts about company research. I pointed out that many states provide all of their residents with access to a suite of resources to help all residents with their information needs. Below are the links to these resources. I have found 45 states that provide such access, and 4 others that help the individual libraries negotiate with the companies that own these resources to provide access to their communities. While I have not had the time to examine every state's suite extensively, they all provide access to sources for finding newspaper and journal articles. My next post will go into more depth about how best to use these resources for improving your company research.

States Providing full access to residents:
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

States assisting Individual Libraries:
Colorado
Washington

What does it mean to be unemployed? part 3

First I want to say how hard it is to be without a working computer for five days and counting! I am writing from my local public library (wonderful places libraries) and can't wait until our computer is fixed. Now to what I really intended to talk about, then new unemployment numbers.

So last Friday before the release of the report, I was listening to NPR (Morning Edition) and they had experts talking [3 min 39 sec] (transcript) about how it can be typical for the unemployment figure to go up as a recovery begins. Individuals who have been long unemployed may have stopped looking while things were bad, thus being uncounted by the government... and when things improve they return to the search and the survey suddenly starts counting them until they find work. OK, makes sense. Then the report came out and the rate actually dropped [50 sec] (transcript) and approximately 200,000 jobs were added. Great news right?

Well the market had other thoughts. Stocks ended the day mostly lower, but remember that the stock market is always looking at the future. In particular the future of the few (only 30 in the case of the DOW) companies on that particular exchange. In Paul La Monica's The Buzz he explains what many of the underlying problems are that are spooking investors.

What does it all really mean? Well I think that it means that despite all the dysfunction in Washington DC things are beginning to slowly improve. Good luck to all the job seekers out their (including myself.), stay active, things are looking brighter.

Using Social Networks to get hired.

The Society of Human Resource Management conducted a study recently that found 95%  of respondent organizations used (or would use) LinkedIn for Recruitment in 2011. The use of this and other social networks for passive searching (searching for people who may not be currently looking for jobs) is up to 72%.

Moral of the story... if you are not using LinkedIn yet you should. Keep in mind, however, that you want a profile as complete as possible. Don't just stop at the basic resume type information, make connections to people you know in the industry you would like to work in. Join groups for that industry(ies) and contribute your ideas. In this way you will begin to be noticed by people in the industry, and hopefully make a positive impression. If possible get recommendations from former employers and colleagues. These steps won't necessarily garner a job, but when the next company you apply to searches they should find a more positive image of you than if you have no profile or an incomplete profile.

Obama, Romney, Jobs - NYT's Krugman

I told myself when I began this blog to try my hardest to keep this apolitical. I hoped (and still hope) to mainly cover advice for job searchers, free resources for performing the necessary research, and occasionally provocative questions to spur discussion. I provide the following graphic to hopefully spur discussion about the 'recovery' and not to begin a political debate (for those interested in the OpEd piece that published the picture you can read Mr. Krugman's piece in the NYT.)

So for a three year period (2008 - 2010) things were bad! And there is still a long way to get back to where the country was before the downturn. But things have begun to turn around. What steps would best help the country continue to grow? I would love to say comprehensive tax reform and continued support of our social safety net would be possible, but I won't hold my breath.

What does it mean to be unemployed? part 2.

About three weeks ago I wrote a short piece about the meaning of unemployment. First I'll state that it was by no means profound. And Second I'll correct a statement, the official government number comes from the Current Population Survey (CPS) conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) each month. For the full explanation you can read Where do the statistics come from? which is on the FAQ page for How the Government measures unemployment? But the simple answer is that they survey households from their sample every month for four months (to maintain consistency) to arrive at the familiar percentage rate we all hear in the news every month.

In the first post I also mentioned marginally employed. Here is the table from the BLS that tracks this figure, and as I mentioned it is higher (at close to 16%.) I can report that I have not found much to corroborate the higher number I mentioned of 22%. But the BLS does explain in the FAQ that the sampling, while very meticulous, can be off by small amounts. This should not however result in a 6% point difference.

So what does it all mean? Obviously too many Americans are out of work, but how does that change? Well part of the answer seems to be training. Over at Business Ramblings my friend Jerry is writing about the issue. Who's responsibility should it be to help get the chronically unemployed back on their feet?