| Information originating from the company on its web site, in its annual report, and in its advertisements provides an excellent view of the history and the positive aspects of the company. But that information may not be unbiased. Nor is it the only information available to you.
You have to figure
out how the company fits into its industry, and analyze the characteristics
of the industry. After all, who would have wanted to join the best-run
buggy whip company in the dawning era of the automobile?
The
Boy Scouts Are Right - "Be Prepared!"
The more you know about the company (the products, services, and organization), its industry, and its competitors, the more you will stand out from the crowd of other job seekers who aren't as well informed. Use this information to customize your resume and your cover letter and to make a good impression during the interview process.
Who
are these sources?
Sources that have knowledge of industry-wide issues or who are not tied to a specific player are commonly referred to as third party sources. These sources include industry trade associations, specialized consulting firms, industry publications, government agencies, information providers, and security analysts. They cover multiple, if not all, players in an industry. They provide basic facts such as industry size, growth rate, names of participating firms, and industry studies.
You will find these sources through their web sites, on lists from Job-Hunt.org, at libraries, or at job-hunting resource centers. Trade associations, information providers, industry publications, and consulting firms frequently have web sites with public and members-only sections. The public sections often have information supporting the organization’s public relations or marketing goals.
To find industry
associations, use a search engine or go to a public, business, research,
college, or university library to see if you can find Gale Research’s
publication, Encyclopedia of Associations, whose 135,000 listings include 22,200 US associations with national scope and 115,000 smaller organizations.
Online,
see the University of Michigan's Internet
Public Library's list of associations, by industry, and also
Job-Hunt's lists of associations,
by industry, under the heading "Associations and Societies.
Using a search
engine, for example, I entered “candy,” “industry,”
and “association” (without the quotes) into Google
and found the American Association of Candy Technologists , a US-focused site for candy industry employees. This site lists local chapters with contacts and an archive of articles with the first page accessible at no charge. If you see an interesting article, buy it or call the writer or the association’s public relations person (found on the "Contact Us," or similar, page). They might be willing to give you some details over the phone.
- Specialized
Consulting Firms
Back to Google.
Find industry consulting firms by using industry specific multiple
search terms. Entering “biotech,” “consulting,”
and “firms” (again, without the quotes) produced pages
of results. Two, selected randomly, offered free information on
their web sites. Campbell Alliance and Maxion Group had links to articles from industry publications. Consulting firms
are unlikely to return your calls so stick to published material.
Industry publications
are valuable sources of information. The majority have web sites
which contain some free information and allow searches of all content.
An article reprint is relatively inexpensive if it covers a topic
of great interest to you. But it’s free if you can find the
publication at a local library that has a subscription or, sometimes,
on the publication's Website.
While your town’s
public library may have a donated subscription on an industry of
local interest, you are more likely to find the publication at a
specialized public or business school library. Anybody can walk
in off the street to view publications in Boston’s business
library branch Kirsten. Or check to see if you can access publications
at a local college or university.
Online, search
for relevant publications on Google, or visit one of the directories
of news publications like the NewsDirectory
Website where you can browse magazines by subject (also newspapers
by state, and more).
- Benefit
from Your Tax Dollars
Government information
is free or inexpensive. After all, you’ve already paid for
it with your tax dollars. It tends to be an aggregate and not company
specific, and it is often available with a considerable lag time
so it may not be very relevant in today’s fast changing world.
So if you are interested in a job in the chemical industry, you would find the Career Guide “Chemical Manufacturing, Except Pharmaceutical and Medicine Manufacturing” from the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Department of Labor containing data from May 2006.
If you are interested in the relatively robust health industries, the National Institutes of Health (www.nih.gov) contains information about its research and activities, all articles about NIH funded research which are found under the PubMed heading, and references to publicly available tools and data bases from other sources since as universities.
Information on 14 million companies listed in the ReferenceUSA (an InfoUSA company) can be accessed through my local library. Check your local library for resources, both online and hardcopy.
Information
providers sell news feeds and research to clients on a subscription
or single report basis. Some offer information free for marketing
purposes. For example, at www.reuters.com,
you can access basic information about publicly held companies and some research reports free. Free basic company info is also available
at www.hoovers.com. While Hoovers’ information is not as detailed as Reuters’ entries, Hoovers includes privately held firms while Reuters contains only information on publicly-held companies.
Security analysts
often do industry studies as well as individual company reports.
If you cannot obtain them through a relationship with a brokerage
house, check to see if you can access these reports through your
local library. For example, Value Line Investment Survey publications are available through my local library.
Bottom Line
You may find
that some of these sources are better than others for your industry
or your job function. Or you are staying in the same field and already
have a solid background. Either way, you need to understand your
target company in the context of its industry dynamics to know its
long term potential.
© Copyright 2004, 2009 Parmelee Eastman. Used with permission.
---------------------------------------------
Parmelee Eastman is president of
EastSight Consulting which helps provide more effective utilization of external information
in internal decision-making processes. EastSight Consulting clients
range from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. Prior to founding
EastSight, Parmelee was the vice president of the global technology
and communications practice at Fuld & Company and employed for
16 years at Digital Equipment Corporation. Parmelee holds a B.A.
from Wellesley College and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School.
She can be reached at peastman@eastsightconsulting.com.
This
original version of this article was published in the November 10, 2004, issue
of Job-Hunt's free twice-a-month e-mailed newsletter, the Online
Job Search Guide.
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