Helping Clients Research Prospective Employers

As careers professionals, we often advise clients to research prospective employers, to help identify how their skills and experience can be an asset. That can be (relatively) easy if the client's target is a public company or nonprofit -- but what if they want to work for a private company or a start-up?

Here is an excellent article on how to help your clients find out more information about a private company. Author Laurence J. Stybel tells how to use "scuttlebutt" to get the information your client needs.

Also, Forbes compiles a ranking of the top 500 private companies each year. If it's a manufacturing company, try the Thomas Register. Check out the Secretary of State (in the company's home state) for their filing.

Bondra Information Service (a fee-based research company) offers the following guidelines to direct the client'ss company analysis:

• Determine which of the two types of companies your target company is:
  • Publicly traded-trade on stock exchanges.
  • Privately held-more difficult to find information. Not required to file documentation because there are no shareholders. Much information is limited to directories and local publications and some trade magazines, etc. Sales figures are usually guesstimates
• Determine the level(s) of Information that you are seeking
  • Need or end-user usually determines sophistication of information.
  • Determine what you need to know.
• Basic facts
  • -Size of company, address, phone #, description of business, ticker symbol if public, $ net sales, volume, etc.
  • What are the S.I.C. or N.A.I.C.S. codes? These help classify and describe what industries/services the company provides and are becoming more widely used in directories and statistical sources.
  • Standard Industrial Classification Manual (SIC) and North American Industrial Classification System Manual (NAICS) on the Web
• Current and future state of the company
  • News-what is the most current news? Older than 6 months is more for historical research/background.
  • Trends and forecasts
    • (Where is the company now?)
    • Where might it be in 3-6 months vs 1-3 years?
    • Is the company in a growth or retreat mode? Why? What factors? Economic? Lawsuits, etc.
  • Financial Information
    • How is the company's balance sheet, income statement, earnings, eeps, dividend(s)?
    • How is the stock price doing? Current price vs historical price? Charts & graphs.
    • How is the stock doing against its competitors? Against the market as a whole?
    • What is the consensus on the stock by Wall Street Analysts?
  • Strategy-What is the company's short term and long term strategies?
  • Domestic vs International Markets
    • Is the company strong or weak domestically vs overseas? Where does the company make most of its profit?
    • What do each of the regions and products/divisions contribute to the whole?
  • Technology issues-is the company technologically driven?, How is it affected by the Internet?
  • Legal and regulatory issues
    • What are the current or future regulatory and legal issues which might effect the company?
    • What are the major state, federal or international bodies which might have influence?
    • Are there any possible pending bills or regulations which might have a significant impact?
  • Market Share. Is the company a dominant players? Why? What size of the market do they own or influence in the industry or industries that they are in or products/services that they sell?
  • Innovations/New Products/Patents-Does the company have any new products/services/patents?
  • Information Dissemination-What vehicles are used to disseminate information?
    • Web Page
    • Major PR and media for the industry including wire services, trade publications.
    • Industry Associations
    • Trade Shows/Conventions
    • Government Information

"Please Enjoy This Hold Music"

Twice today, while returning phone calls from prospective resume clients, instead of the phone ringing, I got this message: "Please enjoy this music while we connect your call."

It looks like we've got another items to talk to our clients about. In addition to cutesy answering machine messages and too-sexy e-mail addresses, now we should instruct them not to use internal ringtones -- called ringbacks -- (or at least not the ones I heard today, which blared loud rock music for the 15 seconds while the call connected.). I'm not sure either client is aware of the potentially negative first impression these ringtones make ... but I plan on addressing it with them if they become a client.

Will Your Clients Find Employment at .Jobs?

Have you heard of a .jobs domain? Some large companies are registering their company with a .jobs domain address in an effort to boost their recruiting efforts.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) recently conducted its "2007 Advances in E-Recruiting: Leveraging the .jobs Domain" survey, asking HR professionals to assess the the differences between organizations that utilize a “.jobs” domain compared to companies without such domains. The Internet is used many organizations as their primary method for recruiting.

The three most commonly reported techniques or strategies used by respondents from all organizations to engage passive job candidates were: (1) viewing membership directories for associations and trade groups; (2) scanning social networking sites; and (3) mining industry-specific blogs, discussion forums, newsgroups or list-servs.

“The Internet has opened up a whole new set of opportunities through which HR recruiters can and are creatively sifting,” said SHRM President and CEO Susan R. Meisinger.

She added, “Who would have thought, for example, that social networking sites like MySpace – often used as social hubs by so many young people – would become a rich source of background information for job recruiters?”

The study also showed that HR respondents from all organizations (.jobs and non-.jobs organizations) said their most reliable sources for quality job candidates were: a) employee referrals; b) national online job boards (e.g. careerbuilder.com, Monster.com, HotJobs.com, etc.); and c) internal job postings.

Other summary results from the survey are:

• Organizations with a “.jobs” domain reported they had better outcomes in recruiting due to advantages such as direct navigation and ease of use. In addition, they were more likely to use tracking software that allows the electronic management of an organization’s recruitment efforts.

• HR professionals from “non-.jobs” organizations cited the following as their top five greatest challenges: a) difficulty in attracting high quality candidates (67 percent); b) limited staff resources (39 percent); c) difficulty in attracting diverse candidates (30 percent); and d) difficulty attracting enough candidates (30 percent); e) difficulty in managing volumes of resumes (27 percent).

SHRM commissioned the 2007 survey to gain insight into HR professionals’ experiences with Internet recruiting at their organizations. Surveys were emailed to 3,000 randomly selected SHRM members and yielded 450 responses. In addition, surveys were sent to 1,050 organizations that use a “.jobs” domain and yielded 152 responses. The survey results examine differences among .jobs and non-.jobs organizations by organization staff size and employment sector.

Making Friends With College Career Services Staff

Last week, I met some amazing people. They're the career services staff for a college or university. They are the "careers expert" for between 1,000 and 6,000 people each. That's daunting. But then you have to remember that they're also the career resource for tens of thousands of alumni. (Not that they provide the same services that they do to currently-enrolled students, but they're a resource all the same). And they're not only in charge of resume and cover letter guidance, but arranging job fairs, advising professors on current job search strategy, and many of them also provide career planning, which encompasses helping students choose majors and select classes to fit their career goals.

For those of us in the "traditional" career services field (that is, private practice careers professionals), it's hard to imagine. You don't get to choose your clients (you must work with all students), and there's no room for specialization -- with dozens of majors, you've got to help them all, from the English major (what do you do with them???) to the computer science grads.

How to helop these folks? Those of us who have approached our local career services professionals and been rebuffed (for whatever reason) might be tempted to let them go it alone. But don't give up on them. They're overwhelmed, and think they can do it all. Offer to be on their Career Services Board (if they have one). Volunteer to help them organize the on-campus job fair, or teach mock interviews. If they don't want to work with you, go to the professors, or the student organizations and work that angle.

For college career office personnel: Use resume writers to your advantage. Bring them in to teach workshops. Interview them for your podcasts. Use them to connect to employers and recruiters. After all, the students you work with today, will be the clients of these careers professionals tomorrow. And those alumni you're getting calls from? Refer them out. After all, you've got 4,000 other people depending on you. You don't have to do it alone.