Module 1.3 – Creating a List of Target Companies
Introduction – How to find target companies
When in job search mode, you will be simultaneously searching for jobs that are highly visible, jobs that aren’t easily located, networking with your resources and using stealth techniques to create interest in your background at companies that meet your criteria as ideal places to work.
However, the research that you will do to find jobs will encompass more than that. [private]While conducting your research, you will be gathering intelligence not only about the specifics of certain jobs, but how to best make contact with these companies those jobs (not with HR unless you are an HR professional) and using this information to uncover similar companies that may make ideal targets for you.
This information is then used throughout your pursuit of that company. It is used in preparation of a laser targeted cover letter and resume, during phone and in-person interviews and during offer negotiations as well.
It will even become highly useful during your early employment with company with which you eventually accept a job offer. The information should prove useful not only to your new employer, but you will likely have a much deeper understanding of their market space, and their competitors and their products and services.
Remember, you may discover not only interesting companies to target, you may discover names of influential people you want to contact, connect with on LinkedIn as well. You may also uncover very useful information about the industry, etc. Always keep notes that include includes the URL of the site.
A great tool that is absolutely wonderful for keeping track of your research is EVERNOTE. I use it daily and can highly recommend it.
With that in mind, let’s get started.
Hiring trends and company research
Indeed.com
When doing your research, it’s important to research job and hiring trends. One great place to do that is Indeed.com. Here is a link to that site, and the following is what the site looks like.
SimplyHired
Here is the same kind of job trends data (like Indeed.com above) from SimplyHired.com. These two companies are top two job aggregators on the Internet. Here is a link to SimplyHired.com’s trend information.
Inc. 500
Here is a link to the Inc. top 500 for 2010.
Best 100 companies to work for
Fortune and CNN present the top 100 best companies to work for in 2011. Use this link.
Create a list of targeted employers
Direct Employers Association
The DirectEmployers Association is a nonprofit HR consortium of leading global employers who have banded together to post employer only jobs. This site is great for finding companies you want to target and see what their advertised openings are. Here is a link to their site.
Clever use of LinkedIn
To begin with, you must create a profile on LinkedIn. I really, really hope that you do. In module 3 we take an in-depth analysis of how to use LinkedIn. There we will review your profile and show you how and why to make some enhancements to it.
This area is just to give you a brief introduction to LinkedIn.
Key Point: You can boost your network by millions in minutes via open connectors on LinkedIn. These are people/groups which always accept your invitation. Here are some examples.
Now let’s get started using LinkedIn. Begin by finding one company that you know you would be interested in. I suspect that you already know at least one company that is of interest to you. It does not matter at this point whether or not you think they have a job opportunity for you. We’ll be using the advanced search feature to begin with. You must be logged into your LinkedIn account to access this feature. Here is what the Advanced Search screen looks like.
Next use the LinkedIn advanced search feature to find employees working at that company currently. Look through their profiles and see where they worked previously. Make a note of each of these companies.
Next, search by people who previously worked there and see where they moved to as well as worked before. Every one of these companies are worthy for you to consider. You may have to narrow down by skill for some generic corporate titles as these can often more easily transfer between industries, but they still might be targets, depending on your skill set.
Again a reminder, additional LinkedIn uses – as well as more detail for the above – are covered in Module 3.
Use Career One Stop
Use this link to reach the site. This website is useful for experienced professionals or new Grads that are changing careers.
There are many useful sections on this site, depending on exactly what you are researching. At a minimum, you should consider the following:
- Occupation Information
- Industry Information
- State Information
- Career Tools – especially the Skills Profiler
Another useful tool on the site is the Skills Profiler found in the Career Tools section of the home page. Here is a quick link to that section again. Use the Skills Profiler to create a list of your skills and match them to job types that use those skills.
Interested in Start-ups?
There are several sites that will help you discover start-ups that you may wish to target. Here are three sites for you to use:
Industry Associations
Use Google and search for industry associations. Here are two great resources:
Private Companies Research
Use the following:
Public Companies Research
Use the following:
Score
This is a nonprofit association dedicated to educating entrepreneurs and helping small businesses start, grow, and succeed nationwide. What follows is a twist on using this source for a job search. A link to their site is below.
SCORE is a valuable network of 13,000+ volunteers who offer small business entrepreneurs confidential business counseling services at no charge.
SCORE volunteers have the knowledge and experience to help any small business owner get the help they need. Our dedicated volunteers represent over 270,000 years of experience across 62 industries.
These executives are heavily networked, even those that have retired will still know former colleagues working in your target companies and their contacts tend to be the senior executives. Also see comments in the section about finding hiring managers in your target companies. Here is the link to their chapters.
Other Online News Sites
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