Getting the Most Out of the Internet:

Research Pointers from Wendy Alfus Rothman

by David Madison, Ph.D 

See our extensive job-search bibliography in the Members Only section of this website or in the back of our Shortcut book.

 

Research: to those of us who grew up in the pre-Internet world, the word brings to mind scientists and scholars, libraries and drudgery. Research,for whatever purpose,is not a turn-on for most people. And it is probably the least popular component of that least popular of pursuits, looking for a job. Hence job-hunters will often confess that they're stuck, without being able to articulate the reason. They can't bring themselves to admit that skimpy research is probably the reason that they're stuck. We hear, "I know I don't have enough going..." or "I seem to have lost momentum...",but people usually fail to end these sentences as they should, "...because I haven't done enough homework." Research is the key to strengthening every phase of the job-search process.

      The Internet is an incredibly handy tool to help the job-hunter get unstuck.

      Before we get down to specific tips to help you find exactly the information you need, a word of caution is in order. Remember what the Internet is not. If you assume that it will  make your r³sum³ accessible to thousands of hiring managers who will rush to set up interviews, you will be disappointed.  It can certainly help you broadcast your paperwork.  But remember that broadcasting r³sum³s is not a proven technique for getting quality interviews,no matter what the venue. The Internet is not an instant solution to anything: it not a magic wand.

 

Skimpy research is often the reasonjob hunters get stuck. And the Internetis an incredibly handy tool forgetting unstuck.

 

 

Making Hard Work (Almost) Easy

      The Internet allows you to carry out, with ease, speed and amazing depth, the necessary hard work of a sophisticated job search. Research that could have taken hours in the library can now be done in a matter of minutes in your own home or office. If you want to use the Internet to give your job-search a boost, or help propel your career to new heights, remember this mantra: The Internet is a research tool and research is my key.

 

You Won't Find Your Job in Tahiti

      Another word of caution. One of the great thieves of time is television: the number of TV hours logged every week by Americans is staggering. The Internet possesses the same seductive powers; shortly after logging on to investigate professional associations you could find yourself, having clicked on only a few "interesting" links, in the Web site of the Tahiti Tourist Bureau!

      After an hour or two on line,totally fascinated by all the "stuff" that the Internet puts at your fingertips,you can fail to get the information you need. It's very easy to get distracted and to spend time simply playing (and fooling yourself that you're "doing research."). If you're new to the Internet, there's no harm in allotting a few hours to just exploring and snooping, surfing the Net, finding out how it works. But don't kid yourself that this is research.

      If you want to use the Internet as an effective tool to advance your job search, it is vital to have a goal and remain focused: "I'm going on line for 45 minutes, and this is what I need to know when I get off."

      To help maintain this focus, keep basic Five O'Clock Club methodology in mind. We stress the importance of an organized job search,organized by phases and targets. Follow the same principles in your use of the Internet.

 

First: Learning About Industries

      For example, in-depth industry research is one of the keystones of a solid job search. Industry research is vital for those who are considering career change; even before setting out to get informational interviews in a new industry, the job-hunter wants to sound as much like as an insider as possible. But even a 20-year veteran of an industry who just wants to get ahead can benefit from a "refresher course" about his/her own industry. No matter what your industry target, a few hours of Internet research will yield abundant information.

 

 

Keep basic Five O'Clock Clubmethodology in mind. We stress theimportance of an organized job search,organized by phases and targets.

Follow the same principles inyour use of the Internet.

 

       The home pages of the major servers offer easy entry to basic industry research, and in the paragraphs that follow, you'll find only a sampling of possible approaches.

      One of the channels on AOL, for example, is called "Research and Learn." Click there and you'll find, among many other tabs, "Careers." Enter there and you can scroll through a list of about twenty industries, from "Accommodations & Food" to "Retail." Pick one and hit "Go," and you face a multitude of subcategories (under Accommodation & Food, for example, you'll find e.g., Catering, Event Planning, Hotels & Motels, Nutrition and Health). Also listed are associations, directories of trade shows and conferences, seminars, even message boards and chat rooms. In just a few clicks and a few minutes you are at the heart of solid industry information.

      Another way in is through AltaVista. The Directory on the AltaVista home page offers over a dozen categories, one of which is "Business & Finance." Clicking there will lead to "Business Professions," which in turn brings up a list ranging from "Architecture & Planning" to "Science & Technology." This list also includes "Business & Finance." Click on that and you will find many subcategories, including : Accounting, Banking, Corporate Finance, Insurance & Risk, Investing and Real Estate. To cite but one example, click on Banking and you will find a huge menu of banking industry web sites, including Thomson Financial Bankwatch, whose home page directory includes Recent Research. This yields four months of articles about the banking industry, including the name and phone number of the researcher.

      You can also dig for industry information through Expert Marketplace. You're required to "join," but it's free and sign-up is on-the_spot. The Home Page offers many options, but for starters click on "Business Improvement Centers," which will present about a dozen fields to choose from. Clicking on any of them, you will find the following: Free Business Case Study Alert Service Click Here. If you sign-up to get the case studies, Expert Market Place e-mails you articles on the industry you've selected.

      JobDirect.com also requires you to sign up, and it's geared toward college kids, hence the way into industry information is called "Wet Feet"! But the information is not dumbed-down and is useful to any researcher. You can, in fact, skip JobDirect.com and go directly to Wetfeet.com. Clicking here will pull up a list of about 25 industries. Choose any of these and you'll be prompted, among many other things, to "Industry Overview." Under many of the industry categories there are links to information about specific companies. Under each industry there's also a tab called, "What's great and what's to hate." For anyone contemplating career change, there may be good "reality therapy" in these essays.

      A suggestion: take a few minutes to examine carefully such home pages as ExpertMarketplace.com and Wetfeet.com. There are lots of options that can lead in many helpful directions. Although we rejoice that Internet re-search can be a speedy affair, take time to carefully check out what's offered on such powerful sites.

 

Do You Really Want to Work for That Company?

      Industry research has been a fundamental first step, especially if you're in the assessment stage, trying to get your bearings. Industry research has helped you define targets, and within each target you may identify 2, 12, 20 or more appropriate companies. Moving ahead to perform in-depth research on each company will enable you to interview smartly, of course. But research can help you get the interview. A generic cover letter ("Dear Sir, Enclosed for your review is my r³sum³...) is useless, but a cover letter can advance your cause if it reflects solid knowledge of the company and states the reason for your interest in that company.  An opening paragraph that grabs the reader will heighten interest in you and your r³sum³: "Dear Sir, Since your company has recently introduced five new products in the European market...." You can grab the reader with that kind of sentence if you've done your homework.

 

Performing in-depth researchon each company will enable youto interview smartly,of course. But research canhelp you get the interview.

 

 

      A good place to start is Hoovers.com. A search by company from the home page will yield plenty of information and a multitude of links; some links are coded with a small yellow star to indicate that there is a fee, but there is a lot that you don't have to pay for. After you have pulled up the company you're researching, you can click on "Current Stories Mentioning X" and "Archived Stories Mentioning X" to see press coverage and start harvesting data to create a "grabber" intro for your cover letters and enhance your understanding of the company. One of the links on Hoovers.com will help deepen your industry understanding as well; you'll find helpful essays on industries by clicking on "Industry Snapshots."

      Prnewswire.com also allows you to source news stories; from the home page, click on "company news," and search for companies by name. Another good source for finding articles about companies with just a few clicks is the Personal Finance Channel on AOL. This is designed to help investors (you can create and monitor a phantom portfolio), but job-hunters can make use of the company information. One section on the Personal Finance page is called "Quotes, Charts, News & Research." It allows you to search for the ticker symbol of the company; after you've entered the symbol, click "Get Quote." A page of information for the company you've requested emerges, which includes, "News Headlines for...", and this gives you full texts of recent articles about the company. A click as well on "Research Reports" is likely to yield more articles and tables. Again, pay attention to the links that you see on these pages: helpful information is likely to be readily at hand to build your understanding of companies you've targeted.

      Quicken.com also allows you to rapidly access articles about companies. By entering the ticker symbol (which it also helps you to find), you will bring up a full page of data about a company, with links to "Recent Headlines" and "Older Stories." Clicking on "Analyst Research" will pull up reports,some free of charge and others available for purchase.

      Jobvault.com is probably one of the most robust of all the sites. It provides information on more than 1,200 companies, whose extensive profiles are accessed according to industry or by search. Clicking on "Fashion," for example, will bring up links to articles about the industry and its leading personalities.  40-50 fashion companies are listed (everything from Calvin Klein to Sears); click on the company and you're into a virtual library of data (including job listings), "the inside scoop," as the creators of Jobvault.com like to claim. The information is relevant, easy to read and thorough.

      Businessweek.com can also be helpful in job-search research. Many articles are available at no cost, but there is a membership charge for probing its full archive of articles back to the early 1990s. However, if you click on Careers from the home page, you will find a link entitled, "Who's Hiring: Looking for a Company?" Clicking there will bring up a huge list of companies alphabetically, with their job postings and a link to the company Web site.

      Speaking of which, don't overlook the obvious, but be somewhat wary: company Web sites are propaganda pieces, so you can't believe everything you read. But you can still get a lot of information, e.g., company history, names of officers, products, geographic reach, job listings, etc. And you can get a feel for the corporate culture. If all the top company officers come out of Harvard and Yale, you won't be surprised if they haven't adopted have casual Fridays; it may or may not be the kind of place you'd like to work.

 

Don't forget that the Internet changes daily, indeed hourly.Home pages are updated, links change, but you canbe sure that information you'reseeking hasn't gone away.

 

 

Nothing Remains the Same

      Don't forget that the Internet changes daily, indeed hourly. Home pages are updated, links change, but you can be sure that information you're seeking hasn't gone away. Be persistent if the way into information isn't the same now as it was a month ago, or if it's not the way we've described it here. And don't assume that you will be able to find an interesting article again ("I'll look at it later"),some articles are posted on the Internet only for a few weeks or months, and the links you thought you would remember, you don't. Copy an article when you see it.  It's also a good idea to copy/paste it to your word processor, save it as a file, and keep a disk of Internet articles. Build a personal archive of literature relevant to your profession and career.

      Remember to keep your eye on the time: there are the interesting links that landed you in Tahiti, but there are also the chat rooms. An hour or two in a chat room will usually yield rumor and scuttlebutt as opposed to hard information,chat rooms are commonly used for griping,but chatting is not researching. When you log onto the Internet, keep your goal in mind.

 

Copy an article when you see it.  Build a personal archive ofliterature relevant to yourprofession and career.

 

 

Pressing the Flesh...Instead of the Enter Key

      Ironically, we have always found that research, which most people approach with reluctance, becomes a favorite "hiding place" for job-hunters (along with "my r³sum³ isn't quite ready yet"). It's a safer place than interviewing. And because so much is available on the Internet there might be a temptation to keep digging, keep learning, keep tapping away at the keyboard, amassing data.

      But the purpose of research is to move you forward, to prepare you to meet people at the right levels at the right companies who will say, "We need you."  So enjoy your time on the Internet, savor the fact that it has taken much of the pain out of research, find the information that you need, then get out the door.

 

Silence has many dimensions. It can be a regression and an escape, a loss of self, or it can be a presence, awareness, unification, self-discovery . . . Positive silence pulls us together and makes us realize who we are, who we might be, and the distance between these two. Hence, positive silence implies a disciplined choice and what Paul Tillich called the "courage to be." In the long run, the discipline of creative silence demands a certain kind of faith. For when we come face to face with ourselves in the lonely ground of our own being, we confront many questions about the value of our existence, the reality of our commitments, the authenticity of our everyday lives.

Thomas Merton, Love and Living

 

  The preceding is an excerpt from The Five O'Clock Club Book Series by Kate Wendleton. The Five O'Clock Club, Forty-Year Vision and Seven Stories Exercise are registered trademarks of The Five O'Clock Club, Inc. All rights reserved.

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