Beating Unemployment.

J.T. O'Donnell is a career expert, and this recent piece (3 Tips to Beat an Unemployment Stigma) got me thinking. She starts out by mentioning a new study (written up in the Washington Post piece here) that says long term unemployment can be a source of discrimination during a job search. I first want to echo her sarcasm over the shocking nature of these results. It is certainly something I have written about, providing links to advice and offering my own thoughts.

I like the 3 tips that Ms. O'Donnell shares. They are more than just general advice/common sense things that we all already knew. Hopefully anyone reading this will take heart in that (to me at least) they are simple and actionable steps that I can apply today.

Her second tip can involve some heavy lifting with the research muscle.  Don't forget to refer back to my posts of research tips to find useful advice on how to approach learning about a company beyond just reading their web page.

When approaching this company research, while it is important to learn as much as possible from the information that the company produces, it is vital to gather background about the company from 3rd party news outlets and to learn about the industry that your target company is a part of and something about it's major competitors as well.

For anyone who has read this blog long enough will remember that I work in academic libraries. At my FPOW I had the pleasure of working closely with several campus offices that helped students find work. They mentioned time and again that the feedback they got from recruiters is that job candidates don't know enough about their company. Since leaving that university and starting this blog I have seen many advice articles that also mention this. Doing the research about the company is critical. So here is a senerio:

Candidate 1 has not done much research, and therefore the interview is mainly about them and their background.

You (as candidate 2) have done some of this research and you can mention things you have learned (big bonus), but if you can mention these things and make a connection to your background and how it will help you help them... (BIG BIG bonus)

Hopefully it is clear the power of this kind of research. Much of it can be done with smart web searching, but you can find better more reliable sources of information if you use a library. Try this post for a list of high quality resources provided by most state to all of their residents to perform this type of research.

I would love to hear from anyone who has used this type of approach to improve their interviewing.