Numerous resources described in this section will help you identify actual employers. Use all of them or any others that you identify as available in your geographic area. As you become experienced in this process, you'll quickly figure out which information sources are helpful and which are not. If you live in a rural area, a well-planned day trip to a major city that includes a college career office, a large college or city library, state and federal employment centres, a chamber of commerce office, and a well-stocked book store can produce valuable results.
There are many excellent resources available to help you identify actual job sites. They are categorized into employer directories (usually indexed by product lines and geographic location), geographically based directories (designed to highlight particular cities, regions, or states), career-specific directories (e.g., Sports Market Place, which lists tens of thousands of firms involved with sports), periodicals and newspapers, targeted job posting publications, and videos. This is by no means meant to be a complete list of resources, but rather a starting point for identifying useful resources.
Start to create your own customized bibliography of job search references. Use copying services to save time and to allow you to carry away information about organization mission, location, company officers, phone numbers, and addresses.
Employer Directories. There are many employer directories available to give you the kind of information you need for your job search. Some of our favourites are listed here, but be sure to ask the professionals you are working with to make additional suggestions.
Americas Corporate Families identifies many major U.S. ultimate parent companies and displays corporate family linkage of subsidiaries and divisions. Businesses can be identified by their industrial code.
Million Dollar Directory: Americas Leading Public and Private Companies lists about 160,000 companies.
Moody's various manuals are intended as guides for investors, so they contain a history of each company. Each manual contains a classification of companies by industries and products.
- Standard and Poors Register of Corporations contains listings for 45,000 businesses, some of which are not listed in the Million Dollar Directory.
- Job Seeker's Guide to Private and Public Companies profiles 15,000 employers in four volumes, each covering a different geographic region. Company entries include contact information, business descriptions, and application procedures.
- The Career Guide: Duns Employment Opportunities Directory lists more than 5,000 large organizations, including hospitals and local governments. Profiles include an overview and history of the employer as well as opportunities, benefits, and contact names. It contains geographic and industrial indexes and indexes by discipline or internship availability. This guide also includes a state-by-state list of professional personnel consultants and their specialties.
- Professional's Job Finder! Government Job Finder/Non-Profits Job Finder are specific directories of job services, salary surveys, and periodical listings in which advertisements for jobs in the professional, government, or not-for-profit sector are found.
- Opportunities in Non profit Organizations is a VGM career series edition that opens up the world of not-for-profit by helping you match your interest profile to the aims and objectives of scores of non profit employers in business, education, health and medicine, social welfare, science and technology, and many others. There is also a special section on fund-raising and development career paths.
- The 100 Best Companies to Sell For lists companies by industry and provides contact information and describes benefits and corporate culture.
- The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America rates organizations on several factors including opportunities, job security, and pay
- Companies That Care lists organizations that the authors believe are family-friendly. One index organizes information by state.
- Infotrac CD-ROM Business Index covers business journals and magazines as well as news magazines and can provide information on public and private companies.
- ABI/Inform On Disc (CD-ROM) indexes articles in over 800 journals.
National Job Bank lists employers in every state, along with contact names and commonly hired job categories. Included are many small companies often overlooked by other directories? Companies are also indexed by industry. This publication provides information on educational backgrounds sought and lists company benefits.
Career-Specific Directories. VGM publishes a number of excellent series detailing careers for college graduates. In the Professional Career Series are guides to careers in the following fields, among others:
- Advertising
- Communications
- Business
- Computers
- Health Care
- High Tech
Another VGM series. Opportunities In, has an equally wide range of titles relating to specific majors, such as the following:
- Opportunities in Banking
- Opportunities in Insurance
- Opportunities in Sports and Athletics
- Opportunities in Journalism
- Opportunities in Law
- Opportunities in Marketing
- Opportunities in Television and Radio
Periodicals and Newspapers. Several sources are available to help you locate which journals or magazines carry job advertisements in your field. Other resources help you identify opportunities in other parts of the country.
- Where the Jobs Are: A Comprehensive Directory of 1,200Journals Listing Career Opportunities links specific occupational titles to corresponding periodicals that carry job listings for your field.
- Social & Behavioural Sciences Jobs Handbook contains a periodicals matrix organized by academic discipline and highlights periodicals containing job listings.
- National Business Employment Weekly compiles want ads from four regional editions of the Wall Street Journal. Most are business and management positions.
- National Ad Search reprints ads from seventy-five metropolitan newspapers across the country. Although the focus is on management positions, technical and professional postings are also included. Caution: Watch deadline dates carefully on listings, because deadlines may have already passed by the time the ad is printed.
- The Federal Jobs Digest and Federal Career Opportunities list government positions.
- World Chamber of Commerce Directory lists addresses for chambers worldwide, state boards of tourism, convention and visitors' bureaus, and economic development organizations
