The Five O'Clock Club

Using the Internet for Job-Search and Career Management
By: David Madison, PhD, Guild Director

T his article is based on an interview with Wendy Alfus Rothman, author of the Five O'Clock Club Job-Search Bibliography, president of the Wenroth Group, and Internet research guru; and on a presentation by Bill Belknap and Howard Falkow to a meeting of New York area Guild of Five O'Clock Club career coaches. Bill is one of our senior coaches and Howard is a human resources executive. Both specialize in coaching clients to become Internet research experts.

Traditionally, for most people, ‘looking for a job’ has meant scanning the want ads and registering with agencies. Presumably, the more you do it—casting your net as widely as possible—the better your odds. Ads and agencies, however, are primarily reactive methods: you wait for something to happen after the initial effort. This approach is ineffective and frustrating, but if you’ve answered hundreds of ads and visited dozens of agencies, you can brag about how hard you’ve been job-hunting.

Using the Internet for “busywork” is
like driving a sleek sports car
without leaving first gear.

The Internet is a godsend for those who like to indulge in this ‘busywork’ approach to job search: you can devote endless hours to hunting for job listings on corporate websites and dispatching your résumé to countless ‘career websites’ that promise it will be seen by thousands. But this use of the Internet is a lot like driving a sleek sports car without leaving first gear—it’s also using the World Wide Web as a crapshoot. A 2001 study of hiring by 18 companies revealed that only 7.73 percent of 122,000 new employees got their interviews through job boards—while 12 percent were hired after submitting their résumés to a corporate website. On the executive level ‘Internet hiring’ hovered around 4 percent.

Moving Research Into High Gear
Make no mistake about it, however, the Internet is a godsend for people who want to take job-search to another level, and who want to be smart and pro-active in managing their careers. But it is important to be guided, not by the idea of scattering your résumé through cyberspace and hoping for a lightning strike, but by the simple truth that knowledge is power. We owe this insight, so concisely stated, to Sir Francis Bacon (1561 to 1626) and although it has become a cliché, there is no better guideline when it comes to job-search and career management.
It is important to stress the career management portion of this equation. Most of us, if we’re fortunate, won’t spend more than a few months—during any given decade—in active job search. Most of our focus and energy should be on tending to our careers while we’re on the job. Obviously landing a job brings a feeling of relief—but it can also mean that people relax and become complacent. But career-minded people don’t relax. They always have a plan, and the plan feeds on information.

Even after landing a job, career-minded people
don’t relax. They always have a plan, and the plan feeds on information.

The Role of Research
when You’re On the Job
One piece of advice offered by the Five O’Clock Club is this: after landing a job, never let your network deteriorate. If you’ve contacted 50, 100 or 200 people during your job-search, work hard to keep this network alive and well. Similarly, if you’ve developed advanced Internet research skills to find a job, don’t fall out of practice. Use those skills on an ongoing basis. After all, if you’re looking out for your career, always trying to plot what comes next, trying to figure out what will represent the next step up, your perspective should be as broad as you can make it. Whether you have a corner office or a cubicle, you need to know:
· the trends in your own industry
· the key players in your industry—who the power brokers are
· the trends in the national and international economy that impact your field
· exactly what all your competitors are up to
And you want your bosses to know that you know all of these things!
Maybe you like to be well informed because you simply enjoy learning itself—you are curious and revel in new information. If so, knowledge is power may seem too utilitarian: you’re not seeking power when as you absorb new information. But the truth is that, in either job-search or career management, knowledge can make all the difference in outclassing the competition. For most of us, it would be a heart-breaker to find out that we came in second—for either the new job or promotion we wanted—because we didn’t know as much as we should have. These days it is overwhelming probably that the winners are better informed because they have mastered Internet research—on a daily basis they’re using the Internet to keep on top of things.

Access to Free Resources
One of the great resources for job-search research offered by the Five O’Clock Club is the 30-page job-search bibliography, compiled and annotated by Wendy Alfus Rothman, found at the back of Targeting the Job You Want. This lists hundreds of websites, books, encyclopedias and directories to aid in the process of digging for information. When this bibliography first appeared a few years ago, books were listed first—with a smaller section on Internet resources. In the 2000 revision, the Internet Resources were placed first—and had grown to hundreds of websites. We are working now on the 2003 revision of the bibliography, and it will be more powerful and sophisticated than ever.
We suspect, however, that many people click endlessly in search of job listings (still hoping for the easy way out)—rather than to find the information that can fuel an effective job-search. In this article we make some suggestions to help you find the data you need—and do it cheaply. But you should consider joining one or two of the for-fee websites, because paying $25 or $30 for a month of service can be well worth the money:
· … if you’re at the crucial information-gathering early stages of a job search
· … especially if you’re ‘buddied-up’ with another Five O’Clock Club job-hunter, who can share the cost.
It will perhaps be helpful to watch a Five O’Clock Club client, Juan, as he clicked and threaded his way from one link to another, unearthing the data that he needed to identify the best opportunities.

If your advanced Internet skills helped you to find
a job, use those skills
on an ongoing basis to keep on top of things.

The Quest for Another Industry
Juan found that his Seven Stories confirmed his choice of accounting as a career. He loves the precision required and derives satisfaction from working out problems left by others. He has degrees in accounting and has worked in banking for a few years. But his Seven Stories also confirmed that he’s not really cut out for banking. Brainstorming with his Five O’Clock Club coach, he decided to explore others industries—fields more on the cutting edge, more concerned with the health and well-being of people.
One of the easiest places for Juan to begin his Internet research is also one of the most obvious: Yahoo.
At the very top of the Yahoo homepage Juan found an icon entitled Finance. By clicking that, the finance homepage came into view, with ‘Top Stories’ and market news, and, in the column on the left, a tab labeled Industries. Bear in mind that the look, layout and format of major sites like Yahoo tend to remain consistent—but even if things get ‘rearranged,’ there will always be a Finance icon on Yahoo—and it can only improve in power and sophistication.

Since Juan is trying to change fields, his coach advised him to forget about job listings.

Juan had minored in biology and his dad is a high school biology teacher, so he was pleased to see that one of the industries listed was Biotech—that might be a good alternative to banking, and it was on the short list he had brainstormed with his coach. Since Juan is trying to change fields, his coach advised him—at this point at least—to forget about job listing. Learning as much as possible about any new field is the priority. After clicking on Biotech, Juan took a few minutes to look over the new page that popped up—and there was a lot there: industry news headlines, press releases, research reports, and sections with very intriguing titles: ‘Industry Buzz,’ ‘Most Active Message Boards,’ and ‘Unusually Active Message Boards.’ Juan knew how easy it would be to get diverted, so he took a pass on clicking on these, but went instead for the substance: the tab labeled Industry Profiles. In fact, Juan faced a choice here: Industry Profiles was divided into Biotechnology or Pharmaceuticals—a distinction he would need to know to begin sounding like an insider. He clicked Biotechnology.
This profile turned out to include (1) A hefty 7-paragraph article with about two dozen imbedded links to specific companies and topics; (2) a list of the top ten biotech companies by sales—with links to each; (3) a section entitled Key People, listing five executives at the CEO and Chairman levels; (4) an industry ‘glossary,’ which turned out to be a link to the BioTech: Life Sciences Dictionary, and (5) a block entitled Associations and Organizations.

Getting to Know People
in the Know
Juan’s career coach had insisted that one of his first lines of attack, in the push to break into a new industry, should be associations: identify the best groups to join and start rubbing shoulders with people who make their livings in biotech—and care enough about it to be ‘joiners.’ Four associations were listed, and Juan decided to choose the one that sounded the most obvious, the Biotechnology Industry Organization. This one click ushered Juan into a world of almost unlimited information: he had hit a gold mind.
The first thing that caught his eye was a list of five upcoming conferences. He clicked on the first one, and right away began to scan the topics and lists of panelists. It was clear that just reviewing the information on all the conferences would be an eye-opener as to the key issues agitating the world of biotech professionals. After a few minutes scanning the conferences, Juan hit the back button to take a better look at the home page. He discovered a small tab at the top, BIO Members. He was sure that, clicking here, he would be asked for a membership number and password—but was surprised to find himself looking at a list of hundreds of member biotech companies, arranged alphabetically by state! Under the name of each company was its website address.
The Five O’Clock Club has always urged job-hunters to make full use of associations in job-search and career management, but Juan had come across a very powerful association tool that heightens the value of that advice. After just a few clicks from the Yahoo homepage, Juan had arrived at an exhaustive list that can help him in three crucial ways:

1. …in constructing his targets (in Five O’Clock Club methodology, a target consists of three elements: an industry, function and geographic area), because he needs to know the companies in his geographic area—and this list provides that breakdown.
2. …in expanding his search beyond the companies that are well known and tend to grab the headlines; Juan will want to consider second and third tier companies that he has never heard of—where some of the best opportunities might be—and here they are.
3. …in gauging where the hiring activity might be. Juan clicked the website addresses of ten companies at random, and in every case, the company homepage had a tab called career or employment opportunities. If nothing else, studying the openings described by a couple dozen companies will give Juan a reading on whether there is growth or stagnation. When the time comes, he may want to submit his résumé selectively. As we have seen, posting résumés is not the panacea that most people want it to be, but there’s usually no reason not to do it.

Following Multiple Trails
By studying the list in detail, Juan saw that there was more helpful information here than he first realized. He noticed that Lehman Brothers and Ernest & Young, for example, are members of the Biotechnology Industry Organization. That was a clue that these firms must have important clients and projects in biotech. Another name piqued his curiosity: Arnold and Porter in Washington DC. This turned out to be a law firm—Juan knew nothing about law, but he knew it didn’t sound like a biotech company—and on the Arnold and Porter homepage was the link to an article, “Firm Retained for Biotech Task Force Training in Singapore.” By carefully scanning and clicking, Juan may find leads in dozens of fruitful directions. In his quest to “sound like an insider,” in his hunt for people to write to and talk to, this one association list promises to be an indispensable source of information. Just a few hours of research and reading on the BIO website—and following where it leads—will give Juan a pretty good idea if biotech should remain one of his priority targets.

Juan’s first line of attack should be associations: Start rubbing shoulders with people who make their livings in the fields he is targeting.

Since ‘helping people’ was one of Juan’s motivators, another area that he was eager to explore was the not-for-profit world. But Yahoo didn’t seem as obvious a jumping off point here: there is no Non-Profit icon on Yahoo comparable to Finance. Furthermore, Yahoo’s industry list (on its Finance Homepage) didn’t even include not-for-profit. But on the Yahoo homepage, there is a tab, Arts & Humanities, and he decided to give it a try. It led to a long list of options, including one called Organizations. A click here displayed about 20 categories, among which was Foundations and Trusts. This produced a list of about 60 extremely varied foundations—everything from The Ford Foundation to the Princess Grace Foundation, which ‘identifies and assists young artists in the fields of dance, theater and film.’ But Juan suspected that he was glimpsing the tip of the iceberg.

Google—Always Give It a Try
Juan remembered his coach’s advice to treat Google as ‘your best friend.’ So he went to www.google.com and did a search on ‘non-profit organizations.’ Among the first ten results was the link to GuideStar: the National Database of Nonprofit Organizations, “a free service with information on the programs and finances of more than 600,000 American charities.” He found that he could search by state and by type of nonprofit. Since Illinois is one the geographic areas he is considering, he asked for a listing of museums there. This produced a list of 264 institutions, many of which are far too small to need an accountant at his level, but this one website allowed Juan, in short order, to create a short-list of museums worth further investigation.
Google proved its power elsewhere as well. In reviewing the list of presenters at one of the conferences described on the BIO website, Juan decided to try to find out more about a few of them. He copy-pasted the name of Jonathan Dordick, “chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute” into the Google search request box, which produced a lot of hits on Jonathan Dordick. He clicked the first one and found Dordick’s photo and full bio.
He also turned to Google to information about temp jobs. Since there were rumors that Juan’s bank might be laying people off, he knew that finding a consulting or temp assignment might be necessary—while hunting for his dream job. He typed “interim executives” into the Google search box, and found the links to half a dozen major agencies that place professionals and executives.
If you find yourself stumped in trying to find a person, small company or organization, give it a try on Google.

Studying the openings described by a couple dozen companies will give Juan a reading on whether there is growth or stagnation.

Portals to Rely On
Juan’s experience demonstrates that some of the most popular search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, are good ‘entry points’ for launching Internet research—no one ever has to wait for a directory of websites. But a directory such as the Five O’Clock Club Job Search Bibliography eliminates a lot of clicking, allows you go straight to crucial websites, and helps insure that you don’t miss anything. The whole point of the bibliography is to name as many of the best websites as possible.
Always bear in mind that website directories, no matter who publishes them, have a relatively short shelf-life: information can become outdated within months. Not that all the information becomes stale—but you can always assume that there’s something new that’s not listed.
In addition to Google and Yahoo—whose utility is readily obvious—it’s worth pointing out several powerful portals to use for launching research. Career-minded professionals should have some or all of these parked on their list of Favorites.

www.virtualpet.com/industry/mfg/mfg.htm
Even at first glance, anyone can see that this is a rich portal. The list of industries to access is huge (it would run to nine printed pages), with hundreds of categories and sub-categories, from Aerospace to Wire. And when you reach the end, you really haven’t: keep scrolling down to find Industry Portals Outside the USA.
But the creators of this site assume—no doubt correctly—that most people are not expert researchers. So you can click on How to Learn About an Industry or Special Company to be ushered into a very comprehensive tutorial, with 19 areas of coaching, including Identify Trade Organizations, Publications and Trade Shows; Define the Type of Competition in the Industry; Search the History of the Industry; Interview People from the Industry.
Inevitably, if you’ve been researching intensively, the tabs on this site will link you to things you’ve already seen. Under Biotechnology, for example, the first link is to the BIO, the site that Juan discovered after a few clicks on Yahoo. But, just as inevitably, this list can lead to new resources.

www.multexinvestor.com
Access to this site is free, and it takes only a couple of minutes to ‘sign up,’ to roam freely where you want. There’s even a tutorial to help you get around, and you’ll find in-depth and current information on more than10,000 public companies. It’s heavily weighted toward financial data, but there’s plenty of other information for people trying to get a feel for corporate values and cultures. Especially helpful to anyone trying to identify key players: for each company, you can get the names, ages and bios of the top officers.

He typed “interim
executives” into the Google search box, and found the links to half a dozen major agencies that place
professionals and executives.

www.corporateinformation.com/
This site also requires that you register, but it’s quick, easy and free. It gives you access to information on some 300,000 companies, searched either by name or ticker symbol. If you search by name, you’ll get a lot of ‘hits’ that you don’t want, e.g., asking for a search on ‘Duane Reade’ will yield ‘Readers Digest’ as well, so you’ll get tighter results by entering the ticker symbol. It’s very handy that the results include links to the company profiles to be found on other major research sites, such as Hoovers, Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg.

www.business.com
The homepage here invites you to browse its “comprehensive business directory,” which is broken down into 25 categories. Click on any one of these to get to the separate industry homepages. Among the many resources and links you will find Associations. The list of associations here—in any of the 25 categories—is huge, and, of course, each one is linked.

A directory such as the
Five O’Clock Club
Job Search Bibliography
(in the Members Only section of our website) helps you to go to crucial websites.

www.ceoexpress.com
If you spend a few minutes trying to take everything in on the homepage here, you might assume you’ve stumbled across a major Internet Table of Contents. Hundreds of links—to almost anything imaginable—are arranged under four major categories, Daily News & Info, Business Research, Office Tools & Travel and Breaktime.

www.hoovers.com
Although you’ll have to become a paying member for full access to Hoovers, it’s amazing how much information you can get from this major portal without paying. If your Five O’Clock Club group has assigned you to write cover letters to 15 or 20 companies in one of your primary targets, the ‘grabber’ intro paragraph should demonstrate knowledge of each company and its current troubles or triumphs. On Hoovers, when you search by industry, then by company, the profile that pops up includes a link to current news stories that mention the company. You can access the full texts of articles without paying—and be well on your way to writing covers letters with heft.

Three Words of Warning
The Five O’Clock Club has always stressed the key role of research in fashioning a smart and competitive job search. And in recent years, of course, the Internet has revolutionized research—making it handier, easier and faster for everyone. But with this blessing comes a potential curse: it is possible to put in endless hours ‘doing research’ in front of the computer screen—under the delusion that this constitutes ‘job search.’ Research is a prelude to job-search. Or it can be said to run parallel to it—but it’s an aid, a tool.

Thorough research can mean you’ll meet with more of the right people and know what you’re talking about.
You must push for
face-to-face encounters.

If you become addicted to sitting home alone, clicking away and piling up mountains of data, there are three things to bear in mind:
(1) At some point—and usually the sooner the better—you have to meet people. Thorough research can mean you’ll meet with more of the right people and know what you’re talking about. But never get so caught up in research that you use it as a ‘hiding place’ (“I don’t have enough information yet…”). You must push for face-to-face contacts.
(2) A full-time job search, according to the Five O’Clock Club definition, is 35 hours a week. A part-time search is 15 hours. Be sure to use these hours wisely, and be on your guard especially when you’re on-line. The Internet is an unparalleled research tool, but it’s also a playground. It’s easy to be diverted and distracted, and you can end up straying from your assigned tasks. On the homepage of www.ceoexpress.com, for example, there’s a vintage photo over the words, “Photos from the Chicago Daily News: this collection contains over 55,000 photos taken between 1902 and 1933…” You can search this vast picture library by topic and name. Now, how tempting is that!
(3) But don’t be too severe with yourself. ‘All work and no play’ not only can make you dull, it can increase your stress level and impair your ability to network and interview well. That’s why we advise Five O’Clock Club clients to have fun “three hours a week—whether you want to or not!” When you’re ready for your three hours of fun, go to www.moviefone.com .