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Company Research
- Jan 27, 1996
- Learning Your Industry
People look for jobs for a variety of reasons that span the range from personal growth to desperation. The most effective approach to the hunt is completely dependent on the job searcher's objectives and motives. Success is, most often, a function of personal clarity, timing, persistence and the current demand for your particular skill set.
We're less convinced that the much ballyhooed "Networking" approach is effective. Though it appears to enrich a certain subset of authors of job hunting books and career counselors, we know very few job hunters who actually gained employment through networking. Viable businesses are far too concerned about the EEO implications of networking as a recruiting method to allow it to account for a very large percentage of their hiring.
That leaves the job hunter with persistence, self-promotion, research and personal clarity as the major tools of an extended job hunt. The Web can only help with self-promotion and research.
If you haven't, take the time to review your personal and professional interests using Yahoo. The opening page contains a search engine and a link to instructions for using it effectively. Find the companies and professional organizations in your area. Use the Web to understand their growth and development strategies. Email the people in those companies and associations. Find out if and where they are discussing professional issues online. Join those conversations and contribute. Get to know the industry and you'll find the opportunities.
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- Jan 26, 1996
- Finding Opportunities
We can't overemphasize the importance of looking in places that don't say "Jobs" in their title. Editor and Publisher Interactive, for example, is a doorway to a great deal of job hunting insight. Targeted at the creators of on-line newspapers, Editor and Publisher Interactive not only offers job opportunities at the bottom of its home page, it contains a consolidated listing of all newspapers on the Web. This is the easiest way to find the news resources in your neighborhood. Watching the local news and your industry's news are keys to success in the hunt.
- Jan 20, 1996
- Checking Out Your Target
Sometimes, the best you can get is a way to research things offline. Once you've zeroed in on a target, use their 800 number to find out more about them. Use your imagination...get the annual report, talk to the PR office, find out what the folks in Customer Service think about the company. This handy little entry will search for their 800 number.
- Jan 15, 1996
- Specialty Research
Professional societies or associations can be a good source of career information. One good place to find such groups on the web is the Scholarly Societies Link page maintained by the University of Waterloo.
- Jan 11, 1996
- Searching Newsgroups
Another approach to finding your way through the Newsgroup Morass is to use DejaNews. DejaNews allows you to be very refined in the particular groups you are searching while AltaVista allows more refined searches of the Newsgroups as a whole. As far as we can tell, the differences between the results from DejaNews and AltaVista have to do with the load on their servers at any particular moment. It will be useful to get proficient at using both services.
- Jan 02, 1996
- Searching Newsgroups
Another useful tool is SIFT (the Stanford Information Filtering Tool). With a little work, you can set up an account that will present you only the relevant pieces of the Newsgroup traffic for review each day. The problem with using SIFT is that it requires you to visit the site each day to stay abreast of the groups.
- Jan 01, 1996
- Searching Newsgroups
Reading the Job Related Newsgroups can be intoxicating, invigorating and completely overwhelming. A better bet is to use the search capabilities of AltaVista. Use the Advanced Query page and search for the key words of your job hunt within a tightly constrained time period.
- December 30, 1995
- Company Research
The Thomas Register Supplier Finder is an incredible tool for investigating the comapnies you are targeting in your search. You'll have to Register first, but the account is activated immediately.
Another useful research Website is Hoover's Online which offers a Wealth of information on the largest 9,300 companies.
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If you know of a resource that we should review, please let us know at huntsuggestions@interbiznet.com
All material on this site is copyright 1996 by IBN
(The Internet Business Network), Mill Valley, CA 94941
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