Researching Organizations

Attend a Workshop

This workshop is taught three times a semester at The Career Center. Register for a workshop.

Attain Any Job With Any Major, Find Every Job In Every Industry

Just as you can work in almost any profession with any major, you can work almost any job in any industry. If you would like to investigate salaries and jobs, do searches using Indeed Salary Search.

Of course, we must negotiate between our interests and our skills. For example, if I’m interested in Space (as in Outer Space), but do not understand astronomy, becoming an astronomer will probably mean going back to grad school.

Alternatively, If I’m a writer who likes Space, I could research the Space Industry, learn what that consists of, and gather the names of companies in that industry in order to look for jobs with them, or for networking opportunities.

Additionally, I can join a professional association and participate in professional development training to build my credibility as a good job candidate.

Look at Different Professions

Take a look at the O*Net Occupations Database to retrieve lists of professions, and gain a better understanding of the education and skills required to attain certain jobs. The O*NET Job Families search allows you to look at jobs in certain categories, such as Arts or Engineering.

Job ads list skills, duties, and experience expected. Search for jobs and read through their descriptions.

Informational Interviews, internships, and job shadowing are other vehicles through which you can gain understanding of the challenges.

Informational Interviews: short discussion (either on the phone, in-person, or via email) about the job, you might ask questions such as: what activities are part of the job, software used at the office, the skills that are important to succeed on the job, the weaknesses of the job, how the position contributes to the overall mission of the company, what you can do to become an outstanding candidate when applying for the job, any recommendations or advice for the beginning job seeker?

Job Shadowing/Externship: 1-5 days spend shadowing, or following a professional around to meetings, work activities, any movements throughout the day.

Internships: committed amount of time spent acting as a paraprofessional for an office, these are paid and unpaid.

Knowledge of Industry Makes You a More Competitive Job Candidate

"Employers perceive "researching the company" as a critical factor in the evaluation of applicants because it reflects interest and enthusiasm. In the interview, it shows that you understand the purpose of this process and establishes a common base of knowledge from which questions can be asked and to which information can be added, thus enabling both applicant and interviewer to evaluate the position match more accurately." How to Research Companies

Understanding Industry For Non-Business Types (like me)

Industry terms are standardized and grouped by the U.S. government in the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS); in each of these major sectors there are subsectors (under the category of Information, the subcategory News can be found.)

Companies grouped together in the same industry produce goods, or provide services, to the same market. For example, companies in 927110 Space Research and Development are competing for the same market and providing similar services.

List of Industries

Drill down to specific industries by starting at the surface or general industry term; click on any sector and go to the the NAICS page where you will get a list of the industry's subsectors:

Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting (subsectors include Crop Production, Forestry and Logging etc.)
Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation (subsectors include Museums, Historical Sites, and Similar Institutions etc.)
Public Administration
Educational Services
Health Care and Social Assistance
Accommodation and Food Services
Information
Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
Management of Companies and Enterprises
Mining
Utilities
Construction
Manufacturing
Wholesale Trade
Retail Trade
Transportation and Warehousing
Finance and Insurance
Real Estate and Rental and Leasing
Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services
Other Services (except Public Administration) (subsectors include Space Research etc.)

Start Researching Companies and Organizations

Now you understand 'industry information', NAICS (standardized terms for industries), and professional development. Strengthen your job search by using industry information to connect to jobs and the 'hidden job market'.

As you peruse through the NAICS sectors you'll notice there are standard terms and numerical codes assigned to each of the categories. These become significant as you conduct research across databases, and will search using these codes to find results.

There are several databases through which you can conduct research on companies, all of these are made available through either the UIUC Business & Economics Library or through The Career Center.

Databases and Research Methods

Corporate Affiliations (via UIUC library): A unique feature of this database is its strength in providing hierarchy information, it shows the corporate family tree from parent to subsidiaries etc. If you want to see which U.S. companies have divisions in different countries, this database is your best bet. Go to ADVANCED SEARCH, then select from two drop-down fields the terms PARENT COUNTRY and the Country. The trick here is to select the name of the country from the hyperlink "GET VALUES" rather than entering the names yourself. Try a search by choosing US for the Parent Country, and POLAND for Country- there are 163 results for this search as of 9/13/2006.
CareerSearch: The yellow pages on steroids, this is the perfect database for the beginning job search. Internships, jobs, and salary information can also be found here. Password info: CLIENT REFERAL is CAREERCENTER; your UIUC email is the USER NAME, netID@uiuc.edu. Choose a password that you will remember.
LexisNexis (via UIUC library): This database gathers articles from hundreds of magazines, news wires, and news papers. If you're looking for insider information on an industry or company, something you don't think the company would publish about themselves, then look for articles in LexisNexis. Try a BUSINESS SEARCH, the link is in the upper right-hand corner.
ILink: Recruiters interested in UIUC students are directed to this database; this is where they can peruse your résumé, and will post jobs and internships. Strictly for the UIUC community & its recruiters.
Job Posting Sites: Look at job ads to gain a better understanding of the experience and skills employers are looking for, and start applying for jobs! Notice names and titles in the ads.
Vault: The message board on this database allows you to post questions to which employees within your company of interest will respond.

Network to Become An Industry Insider

Approach professionals as someone who is looking for guidance and mentorship, not as a know-it-all who just deserves to have the job. They know you’re fresh out of school and you’ve got to work your way up to learn a thing or two about the world of work.

Start by contacting or meeting as many people as possible in the industries or companies in which you are interested. Rather than ask them for jobs, ask them for a short conversation where you can ask questions about their work and to talk about your interests.

Attempt to contact by: emailing, faxing, calling, or dropping by the office.

For example, if a job ad gives you the name of someone from HR, trying calling HR to ask them for the name of the Hiring Manager who is often not an HR person, but someone within the unit to which you're applying. Then try to contact this person directly.

Capture names of professionals through the following resources

UIUC alumni database
Marquis Who's Who (this is listed close to the end of the page)
Job ads
Networking sites: The CulturalConnect; AlumWire; LinkedIn
Articles (like those from LexisNexis)
Company Profiles (like those on Hoover's)

Ask to coordinate one of these types of meetings

Other networking strategies include

Join professional organizations: student membership rates are greatly reduced, and the networking potential is amazing during the annual conferences or smaller more frequent professional development events. They often also provide membership directories with names and position titles, where you can find contact information to professionals of interest. Here is the Google Directory of professional associations, also search in search engines like clusty using keywords such as 'professional association sports agents' (without the quotes).

Attend the convention: industries regularly meet to share new products and services, check out convention center schedules to schmooze with company representatives and get leads on possible jobs.

MCcormick Center
Rosemont Convention Center
Navy Pier
Campus Calendar (search for conventions)

Research Organizations' Ethical Practices

Systems and products that negatively impact society, health, and the environment are being seriously reconsidered by corporations who are more interested in long term versus short term gain.

There are a myriad of ways to support ethical and fair production, but the first step is to understand the 'how', 'who', and 'what' of the problem. These resources take a look into the ethical track record of many corporations as well as the current positive initiatives undertaken by corporations.

Learn about corporate responsibility and gain a whole new level of professionalism as a potential job candidate.

Ethical Insights: Research is organized into the following areas: Environment; Corporate Governance; Conflict and Political Risk; Socially Responsible Investment; Labour and Human Rights; Development, Sustainability and Reporting.

Maplecroft: Company which provides the Ethical Insights reports- they are committed to working with integrity, social responsibility and environmental proficiency.

Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire: Reports on corporate social responsibility and sustainability issues.

Business for Social Responsibility: Labor law database, conferences, jobs, and more news can be found on the BSR site.

Ceres: Examples of sustainable reporting are provided on the site, along with a list of companies which have joined Ceres.

Doing Business: This database provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement. The Doing Business indicators are comparable across 175 economies.

SustainAbility is a consultancy agency, which has news of interest as well as an interesting biographies section.

Triple Bottom Line: Learn more about what social responsibility means, read Wikipedia's definition of the "Triple Bottom Line"; also worth reading is Natural Capitalist's answer to "What Is Sustainability?".

EthicsScore Card produces corporate ethical rating systems based primarily on public domain information and publications by citizens' groups

Google Directory of Business Ethics lists many sites related to corporate ethics.

Corporate Subsidy Watch from Good Jobs First- "Discretionary subsidies...pit communities against one another, forcing them to engage in an ill-advised bidding war for the investment; or, a company may concoct a phony threat to move out of an area in order to extort subsidies for staying put."

Multinational Monitor is a magazine dedicated to reporting on ethical government and corporate behavior.

Transparency International is a global civil society organization leading the fight against corruption, brings people together in a powerful worldwide coalition to end the devastating impact of corruption on men, women and children around the world.

Other sites of interest:

Corporate Responsibility Officer and Business Ethics: A membership organization for corporations' interested in responsibility.

Global Reporting Initiative's vision is that reporting on economic, environmental, and social performance by all organizations becomes as routine and comparable as financial reporting. GRI accomplishes this vision by developing, continuously improving and building capacity around the use of a Sustainability Reporting Framework, the core of which are the Sustainability Reporting Guidelines. Other components in the Reporting Framework are Sector Supplements and Protocols.

Socially Responsible Investing Use this dynamic resource guide to discover up-to-date return and performance information on a range of socially and environmentally-responsible investment options -- and Forum members to help you determine which investments are right for you.

The Conference Board: Best known for the Consumer Confidence Index and the Leading Economic Indicators, The Conference Board has, for almost 90 years, equipped the world's leading corporations with practical knowledge through issues-oriented research and senior executive peer-to-peer meetings.

VisibleFood project is a website and database created to expose the hidden costs of the globalize system that produces, processes and distributes our food. These costs are not accounted for in corporate balance sheets or in reports on national economies, but are deferred-either to the future or to people somewhere further down on the food chain .

Corporate Fallout Detector is a tool that will detect the footprint of products.

ConsumerReports Green Choices is a new version of Consumer Reports, focused on green products.

UN Institutional Investor on Climate Risk

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