Your contacts can include a wide variety of people; fellow employees; former co-workers; business associates employed by customers, suppliers, and competitors; and fellow members of professional organizations and trade associations, as well as friends, family members, neighbors, club members, accountants, bankers, stockbrokers, insurance agents, lawyers, doctors, clergy men, civic and community leaders, and college and high school alumni. The possibilities are almost endless.
In order to network effectively, you must have a well-thought-out and highly organized plan for advising your contacts of your availability, the type of work you want to do, and your qualifications for this position. An integral part of this plan will also be to cultivate new contacts along the way. If all you do is tell a dozen or so people whom you already know that you're looking for a job and give each one a copy of your resume, you'll be leaving your success up to chance.
The best approach to take is what's known as the "targeted" approach. This is where you make a list of the companies with which you want interviews-either because of the industry or field they're in, their size, their location, or some other important factor-and then systematically go through the list. The first step, therefore, is to compile such a list of potential employers. Call it List A. If you need assistance in identifying companies to approach, many sources are available.
To identify companies by industry
Thomas Register, Standard Directory of Advertisers, Moody's Indus trial Manual, Value Line Investment Survey, International Directory of Corporate Affiliations, Dun & Bradstreet's Million Dollar Directory and Middle Market Directory group 150,000 companies by product line and type of service rendered.
To make sure you haven't missed any organizations that are subsidiaries of companies, you might want to check the Directory of Corporate Affiliations. This publication cross-indexes subsidiary companies by type of business. If you want to know which companies are the leaders in their industry, see Ward's Business Directory. It ranks 51,000 companies according to industry sales. In addition, Guide to American Directories for Compiling Mailing Lists and Principal Business Directories for Building Mailing Lists state the industries that have directories of their own, including the names of the publications.
* These reference books, along with state directories, also list companies' sales volume and/or number of employees. This will help you select the size company you want.
Most of the above reference books can be found at your library. Many professional and trade associations publish directories that list their member firms. The Encyclopedia of Associations, The Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources, and National Trade and Professional Associations of the United States contain the names and addresses of associations throughout the country. You can also call one or two of the largest companies in the industry in which you want to work and ask to be transferred to the president's secretary. This person will have the name and address of the association you need. Also, ask if there's a local chapter or an independent association that's in the immediate area.
To identify companies by geography
There may be a local or regional professional association for the companies in the industry you're interested in. Again, if you call the secretary to the president at one or two of the largest companies in the geographic area that interests you (the Yellow Pages will be helpful here), you'll be able to get contact information on the secretary or president of the local association, if one exists. This person may be able to provide you with a list of the members. Moody's Industrial Manual, Million Dollar Directory, Middle Market Directory, Directory of Corporate Affiliations, Directory of Foreign Manufacturers in the United States, Directory of American Firms Operating in Foreign Countries, International Directory of Corporate Affiliations, and Bottin International Business Register cross-index companies geographically. The Thomas Publishing Company puts out regional guides that provide the names of manufacturers of different products located in various geographic areas. Each state publishes a directory of its largest employers. The companies are listed alphabetically, by city or town. (They are also cross-indexed by industry.)
