Tuesday, January 23, 2007

What Makes Your Next Boss Tick?

If you know what makes the employer tick, you stand a much better chance of pushing his hiring button. Think about it. If you know his business goals, you can frame your qualifications in those terms. But first you need to find out what those business goals are.

Use every resource you can think of to dig up the employer’s history, market standing, goals, challenges, mission statement, industry stats, clientele, corporate culture, and whatever else you can think of. Here are some good places to look for this stuff:

• On the Web — Do a company and industry search
• An online professional network such as LinkedIn, where you might meet someone who knows your potential boss
• The business section of your library
• Business, trade, and financial magazines
• Business sections of newspapers
• The company’s literature — Just call and ask them to send you brochures, annual reports... even catalogs. And while you’re at it, remember to get the name of the hiring manager for the position you want. His name might be listed in company literature, or you can call the company’s human resources department.

Job Lounger, do you have a question? Email it to me and I’ll post your question and my answer here in The Job Lounge.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'd add one more resource - ZoomInfo.com (full disclosure, I work there). Business-oriented search engine where you can pull up information on specific managers, their company, work history, colleagues, etc al. Great research tool for job hunters. Also, a neat way to find a manager at a company you are interested in (thereby bypassing the online job-board black hole).