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Tracking Ongoing News

19 January, 2016 - 17:43
Available under Creative Commons-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Even after you do overall research on a specific job, organization, or industry, you need to be able to track any current events or developments. You can consciously remember to search the Internet for news and media mentions of jobs, organizations, and industries of interest, or you can set up an automatic search via Google Alerts. With Google Alerts, you can select specific keywords, phrases, or names for Google to search on and send back to you (daily or weekly) with Internet mentions containing those keywords, phrases, or names. You want to use this sparingly and with very specific search terms because you may receive too many results. At the same time, this is a very useful tool to ensure that you capture the latest developments for jobs, organizations, or industries you are closely following.

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Figure 6.4 Sample Google Alert 
 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Job-specific research resources include job boards, trade and professional associations, biographies and business and news publications, and social media and online communities.
  • For organization research, you also want to look at financial statements available via investor relations of a specific company, the SEC, the IRS, or aggregators such as Dun & Bradstreet, annual report providers, or Guidestar.
  • For industry research, in addition to the resources listed for job and organization information, you want to look at industry associations.
  • For ongoing news, set a Google Alert for keywords and specific organization names.

EXERCISES

  1. Do you have fast and reliable Internet access, and are you comfortable with Internet searches and social media?
  2. Do you have access to a good business or reference library?
  3. Do you know how to access your current learning institution’s or your alma mater’s career services office?
  4. Pick a specific job, organization, or industry target that interests you. Imagine that you have an interview relating to your target in the next three days. Come up with a research report that would enable you to speak intelligently about your target.
  5. Where do you need support in your research efforts?
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