A New Resource for Company Research

According to Weddles.com, there is a new and free online resource that can be of help in researching companies during your job search. Of course, traditional resources such as Vault, Wetfeet, Brint, and Hoover's Online offer a great deal of valuable information, some of it free, but much of it fee-based.

The new resource is ZoomInfo. They have introduced a feature that enables you to find detailed information regarding more than 3.5 million companies through their proprietary business information search engine. Using this tool, you will be able to find companies by name, products or industry, market niche and a variety of other variables. Available for review are detailed descriptions which may include specifics regarding revenues, acquisitions and recent news, bios of key employees, etc.

Be sure to include this tool in your research efforts before going in to interview with a prospective employer. Displaying your knowledge of the information to be found there may be just what's needed to position you above your competition! It could also be put to good use in writing a cover letter to accompany that dynamic executive resume you are submitting. Nothing makes a hiring executive sit up and take notice more than a candidate who shows far more than cursory knowledge of the company, its competitors, its challenges and opportunities.

Recruiters Finding Candidates in Unlikely Place

I received some interesting intelligence through the Career Masters Institute in an e-newsletter on Friday. Recruiters are finding good talent in a place that most executives would probably not even think about: Craigs List.

Many of you are likely familiar with Craigs List as an online community site where classified ads for furniture and housing, personal ads, and discussion forums are to be found. There are also jobs listings, but the surprise is that recruiters are using it as a primary resource for candidates. According to a presenter at a Northwest Recruiting Association meeting where the best tools and sourcing strategies were under discussion, the following was revealed at a recent ERE recruiting conference:

"Craigs List - not Monster - is now the best place and most often used place to find good talent."

ERE should be "in the know" about this. Initially conceived as an email discussion list for recruiting professionals over 9 years ago, ERE.net is a popular source of information and networking opportunities for recruiters and HR professionals on the Web.

A fellow CMI member who is seeking a recruiting position validates this, as she has found her listing on Craigs List to draw far more interest than on any other venue, including Monster and Career Builder. Coincidentally, while interviewing one of my clients today who is a general management/operations executive, he mentioned that his company has used Craigs List extensively in its recruiting efforts.

So if you are leveraging the Internet in your employment search, you may want to consider perusing the listings and/or posting your resume on your local Craigs List, as well as those for other geographic locations of particular interest to you.

Craigs List's forums that span 450 cities worldwide draw more than 7 billion page views and 20 million users per month, placing it at #7 ranking, behind only Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, Google, eBay, and Newscorp. More than one million new job listings are posted per month. If any doubt remains, I encourage you to view this page with statistics comparing Craigs List with Monster and Career Builder:

http://charlotte.craigslist.org/about/job.boards.html

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