While we’re doing this module, pretend you are a combination of Mata Hari or James Bond, Sam Spade or V.I. Warshawski, or Christopher Columbus or Alexandrine Tinne`. During this lesson, we’re going to start to know the enemy, prospective employers. To gain that knowledge, we are going to spy on potential employers, search for clues about the nature of their business and blaze a trail that will eventually end at "El Dorado," otherwise described in this course as "a job."

The nice thing about this module, is that we won’t have to smuggle microdots through customs, stake out a joint in the rain, or battle malaria while searching for the source of the Nile River. It can be done from the comfort of our own home or office. Some of it should be done in your local library. So fellow travelers, grab your mini-camera, button your trench coat, and don your pith helmet, we are about to begin.

Most articles or books you read about finding a job will tell you to go the library. Once there, you do what they expect you to do, look up prospective employers, find a bunch of facts, make some photocopies and then go your merry way. But what happens if you go to the library and don't find any information on your prospective career or new employer. What then, what do you do next? Maybe I can help.

We will be doing research for two reasons. The first is because it is the second part of Sun Tzu’s dictum. Through our assessments we know ourselves. Now is the time to get to know "the enemy," our potential employers. You know, the people who are going to scan the hundreds of resumes that flow into their personnel offices and then pluck yours from the pile. I can hear the phone ringing in the background. It’s them, they’re calling to arrange an appointment for an interview right now. So before that happens it behooves us to find out as much as we can about their products, what they look for in new hires, and their address.

The second reason has a New Age feel to it. Doing research is something that can be a life long activity. It is called "keeping abreast" or "staying current" and once you’ve learned how to do it, develop the habit of doing it, you may discover something surprising, that doing it can be a lot of fun. So we’ re headed off to the library, both virtual and actual. But wait, someone in the cyber back row has a question.

Of all society's institutions, I hold libraries in the highest esteem. Anyone can walk into them, and use their resources regardless of race, color, creed, social or financial status. In this so-called information age, they are bastions that protect the free flow of information against the repeated assaults of special interests.

Time to get off the intellectual soapbox. Time to get practical. Every job manual, career planner, employment counselor and man-in-the-street, is going to tell you to go the library as part of your job hunt.

I remember back in 1988, when I moved to Bakersfield, I spent some my first hours alone in the county library researching employers and looking for job leads. Fat lot of good it did me. But that was what I was expected to do and I did it.

Perhaps you have had a similar experience. People tell you that one of the many things you must do, as a job hunter, is go to the library and do research related to your job search. So, you go to the library expecting to find a wealth of information on a prospective employer, ads that exactly match your job qualifications, and books on resumes that are guaranteed to get you hired in 15 minutes. After spending a Saturday doing research, all you may wind up with is a photocopy of the yellow pages that gives you the names and addresses of local engineering firms. Or, you have a copy of a job listing with the local government that will be sure to have at least 800 other applicants. If you’re really lucky, you can borrow a book on resumes that was written while Eisenhower was president. Such results can be discouraging when you are trying to find a job or changing career.

But, if you know what you are doing, using the library, whether virtual or actual, will be very beneficial to the ultimate outcome of your search. So regular visits to the library will be an important part of your job search and should become a regular habit after you've landed your next job. So don't expect to find what you are looking for, expect to find something better.

A good example of this concept is personified in the explorer Christopher Columbus. He poured all the available books and maps he could get his hands on looking for facts that would prove his belief that you could reach the East by sailing west. Columbus was going to Japan in search of spices, porcelains and silk. He stumbled on to a little thing later called America. He found a little gold, but none of the other things Europeans desired from the orient. But Columbus knew he had found something important and he spent the rest of life, trying to determine the value of his discoveries. Others followed and the rest, as they say was history.

Actually, the answer to this question is quite simple. The moment you get to the library, head to reference desk and ask for the Occupational Outlook Handbook. (OOH) Most libraries should have a paper copy. If you are really lucky they'll have an online version of this valuable tome. But you don't need to go the library to use the online version

In the previous module, we used the OOH to answer an OBTW (oh, by the way) question. But for the next assignment well be using the OOH to test drive our dream job, so how the visualized rubber meets the actualized road, if I may abuse the automotive cliche for a moment.

Assignment #1 Career Research using the Occupational Outlook Handbook

Now that you've written the job description for your dream job, it is time to begin looking to see how that relates with what is out there in the real world. We need to match our aspirations with our expectations and see what fits. In this assignment we are going to do what we did in the third module. We are going to go to the on-line edition of the Occupational Outlook Handbook, the URL is: http://stats.bls.gov:80/ocohome.htm.

Allow me state the great truth on career planning and job searching. Based on my experience, The Occupational Outlook Handbook, (OOH) is the first and best place to start when it comes to finding information on careers or jobs. The handbook is great because it tells you many things you need to know about how you dream job is forced to mutate when it comes into contact with the real world. The on-line version is even better than the print version in three ways, the search engine allows you to quickly search the entire handbook, there active hyperlinks to related occupations, and there are also some URLs or active links to some trade associations or professional organizations.

Click on the phrase "Perform a Keyword Search on the Handbook." In the text box below "I want to search for," type in one of the top keywords from your dream job description. What comes up? How many hits did you get? Take a look at the job descriptions that interest you.

When I did this, I typed in writer as my keyword. What I got were two job descriptions "Writers and Editors" and "Reporters and Correspondents." When I started researching writers and editors the information became interesting. But further research into the reporters and correspondents category got a little depressing, since that category is an area where opportunities for employment have begun to decline. Discouraging, but better than spending two years working in the newsroom of some local tabloid before finding out this sad and sorry fact. When I got to the bottom and started looking at related occupations, things started looking up. If the occupational outlook for writers and reporters were a little grim, when I clicked on one of the related occupations, "public relations workers," I was gratified by the following message "Employment of public relations specialists is expected to increase rapidly...." Well and good I says. Then, came the following: "keen competition is expected for entry level jobs." Ah well, every silver lining has a cloud.

Having done it once, key in the results of your personal assessments into the OOH's search engine. See what comes up. You will notice that there are other two other ways to search the handbook. You can use the index, and you can search by occupational cluster. Take some time to explore those options. If you are an engineer, the index has plenty of information on that profession, so does the occupational clusters section.

Suppose you want to do something related to the "environment." Nothing specifically in either of those to sections related to that concept. So, a key word search will be your best bet. When I typed in the truncated word "environment*," I got 89 hits. Some job categories that appeared in my search were: mining engineers, urban and regional planners, geologists and geophysicists, and so forth.

Before I decided to pander to your insatiable need for immediate gratification, I was prosing somewhat sonorously about the value of libraries to society in general, and and your career planning in particular.

Now, where was I....Oh, I remember. I was rattling on about Christopher Columbus. Well, where do you think I got that information? I found it in the library, of course. I found this book in the juvenile section where all the fairy tales are shelved.

In fairy stories, the hero Jack, finds a magic bean, or goose, or leprechaun that he uses to make his fortune, after murdering a few giants and marrying a couple of princesses. Unfortunately, when you go to the library you will not find a magic bean or a file of information that has a memo telling you that you have just been hired by XYZ Corp., and start work on Monday. No such luck. Like Columbus, you will be studying maps, pouring over the dusty tomes of ancient explorers. You will be a modern explorer, looking for any kind clue about this territory you are preparing to explore. You will be trying to find out more information about prospective employers so you will become as Sun Tzu would say "one who knows the enemy and knows himself ," as opposed to "One who does not know the enemy ." You will have to do some digging.

The Occupational Outlook Handbook is just a starting point There are other types of research that can be done in your local public or academic library, the first is obvious, career research. We've started on that with the OOH. If the information in the handbook is all you need, then you can stop. If you want more information on your career, another good source is "America's Career Infonet" the URL is http: //www.acinet.org/acinet/default.htm.

Career InfoNet, is part of America's Job Bank Network. A search of this database, allows you to add to the information you've gleaned from the OOH. Click on the "Wages and Trends" link. You are then whisked to a page entitled "Wages and Trends - Occupation Search." There you can do either a menu or keyword search. The menu search is done by job family, the keyword search is by word. Try doing both types. Career InfoNet, then allows you to do your search by state. When I keyed "wastewater," I got wastewater operator and wastewater plant operator. I looked at the job opportunities in the US, California and Missouri. Give it a try and examine the results. But there are other lines of investigation that can be pursued. You can also do company research, economic research, industry research and also find some job postings.

In the following paragraphs, we will explore the types of research mentioned above. To do that, we must approach the subject from two viewpoints. So when I talk about doing library research, I will talk about doing it online and then talk about using your local library. Learning to use both virtual and actual libraries will be beneficial. In my experience, many students prefer to rely solely on the computer to do their research. The minute I try to direct them to encyclopaedias, books or periodicals, they start to look at me like I am a genial, idiotic android like C3P0. Their viewpoint is understandable. Using computers to do most of their research is quicker, easier and faster.

You can do most of your research with a computer, but not all of it. Let me give an example. While working on this module, I decided to check the Stiern Library's business reference books, I walked by Commerce Clearing House's Human resources management Personnel practices/Communications. Since I subtitle of this module is "know the enemy," I looked at this book on a whim. That was one heck of a whim. This book is the how to manual for human resource managers. In the section with the snappy title, "Interviewing and Evaluating Applicants," there were all sorts of great information such as:

"In addition to fully formed questions, often an interviewer must push or 'probe' for more information." It then gives some examples of probing questions which include, "Uh-huh?" or "And then?" or "What happened next?" Now Commerce Clearing House does have a web site, the URL is: www.cch.com., but you are not going to find that kind of juicy information online. I found it by browsing the stacks of the CSUB library. So, be open to the advantages of regular trips to the local library and the experience of your all-wise, local librarian. Uh-huh.

As an explorer bound for the shores of the dark continent of career research, I have good news. Thanks to computers and the community created by the world wide web, the impenetrable gloom that once enshrouded the unknown has been illuminated with bright and penetrating light. Imagine Columbus navigating the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria using the Global Positioning System when he's not sending off e-mails to Queen Isabella and his best buddy Toscanelli. Like Columbus who sailed west to reach the east, you too are sailing to the library to find various types of information. Columbus was searching for gold, spices, silks and porcelain. You are searching for information on companies, industry trends, economic forecasts, and job postings.

Most people do company research just prior to a job interview. Another situation that prompts people to do company research is the imminent move to another city or state. Then they're looking for companies in their field in their new city. Whatever the reason, company research used to involved at least one trip to the local library. But now a lot of research can be done on-line.

Usually the first place you go to do company research is a business directory such as the ones put out by Dun & Bradstreet or by the Thomas Publishing Company. Business Directories usually give you basic information about companies, address, officers, sales, number of employees, and SIC code. It's a starting place.

On-line, this information has been expanded. Take for example the Thomas Register of American Manufacturers. (TomCat) the URL is http://www4.thomasregister.com. The print version of the Thomas Register is one of the most cumbersome collections of volumes ever designed, but the online version of the register is a joy to use, especially if you are doing company research. You do have to register, but the service is free. Once registered, you can search the catalog either by product name, brand name, or company name.

So let's say you want to do working in wastewater treatment, so in the keyword search box type: wastewater treatment. A screen with your search results then appears. The TomCat gives you four choices for types of information, online catalogs, literature by fax, online orders and web sites. My search got 17 product headings with the words "wastewater treatment." Under "Engineering Services: Wastewater Treatment," I found five companies, none had web sites, but a couple did have online catalogs, please the firms mailing address and telephone numbers. This research was not as exciting as finding a lost Mayan city or additional pieces of the Rosetta Stone, but I did get a few leads. Hey, it's a start.

Dun & Bradstreet also has an online edition of its "Million Dollar Directory," which is called the "Million Dollar Database." The URL is: http://www.dnbmdd.com/. Click on Access the Database, then do an advanced search using the view defined options. On my search, I did Civil Engineering and California. I got 12 hits. Table came up showing the names of the firms, their sic code, location, sales and total employees. I did another search for my hometown, Bakersfield, and got a list of 144 companies, a veritable Who's Who of Bakersfield business. Again, the information was skeletal, but still it gave me more clues with which to continue my research.

Search engines like "Infoseek," or web directories like Yahoo, are also good places to find company information. As I've said before there's a wealth of information available on the world wide web, so spend some time exploring it.

Having unearthed the bare bones of information on corporations and companies that interest you, the next step is to try to flesh out by searching articles on the organization themselves or articles on the people who run them. Articles can be found either in print or online. Searching online may be the place to start, most libraries have web-based periodical indexes. Most academic libraries restrict access to currently enrolled students, so you may have to make a trip to you local public library to look for news stories about your company.

Web research is easy, use a search engine, which can be accessed by clicking on the "Search" icon on your browser menu. A search engine will appear with a text box where you can type your search. Type: "Acme Corporation," (with quotation marks) in the box. That tells the search engine that you want web pages with that exact phrase and then see what comes up. Needless to say I came up with some interesting stuff, including the transcript of a court case entitled "Wile E. Coyote Sues the Acme Corporation for Defective Products" http://www.zz-zz.net/html/wile.html. Lawsuits can tell you a lot about a company. If their best customer is unhappy with a corporation's products, you may not want to work there.

The next step may require you to head to the local branch library, to search their periodical indexes. When I searched for information on the Acme Corporation, I didn't find much, except a couple of mentions of the Wile Coyote case. I then did a search on one of the defective products mentioned in Coyote v Acme -- Rocket Sled. Currently a rocket sled is being used at Sandia National Laboratories. I then went back to the Thomas Register and searched for rocket sleds. Unfortunately, Acme has no peers when it comes to making rocket sleds, neither does it have any competitors, which may explain why they're being sued by Wile E. Coyote. If Acme were a real company, you could also search the periodical indexes using the names of their corporate officers. You may find articles they have written, or articles about them. There may not be much information on a company you are looking for but you will feel that you have touched all the bases.

Searches I talked about above help to bring home another point about doing company research: sometimes there will be little or no information about a company, its corporate officers, or its products. So what do you do next? You cast your net a little wider.

If you haven't found anything about a company you're interested in, research a broader subject, the industry in which your company competes. Wile E. Coyote's nemesis, the Acme Corp., has no competitors when it comes to making rocket sleds. But it also makes rocket skates, and host of other jet propelled products. What makes Acme unique, besides manufacturing all sorts of fiendish rocket-powered thingies, is that it is a mail order firm. Acme actually sells the deadly stuff C.O.D. to hungry coyotes. So if you are not finding a lot of information about your company, switch to the industry in which it competes. Acme's products provide the clues. Just by looking at the products mentioned in the Coyote suit, you can determine that Acme's businesses include: mail order, the manufacturing of rocket engines, and the assembly of sleds and roller skates. Finding information on an industry will tell you something about a particular company, and it will also give you some answers for those probing Uh-huh questions that may pop up during a job interview.

Surprisingly, the best resource for industry research is a book, U.S. Industry and Trade Outlook '98. This book is the replacement for U.S. Industrial Outlook. At this writing, there is no online version available, so you will have to use the book or the cd-rom version, if your local library has it on cd-rom. This is what the Industry and Trade Outlook said about "Guided Missiles and Space Vehicles (SIC 3761)

"Because of reductions in missile production, as well as the trend for government defense budgets to remain stable at best, industry analysts believe that the missile sector of the aerospace industry will face continued consolidation between 1996 and 2007."

Not good news, if you want to build rocket engines for Acme. But what about the mail order side of the company. For that, I went to another good source of industry information Standard & Poors Industry Surveys said about the prospects for the home shopping sector of the retail trade.

"We believe that home shopping retailers will continue to post strong sales gains in 1998, fueled by high consumer confidence and growing disposable income."

Industry and Trade Outlook pointed out something that was brought out in the Coyote v Acme case.

"Many consumers complain that retailers all too often neglect customer service. Customer service is a vital component in the quest to establish repeat business."

Perhaps Wile Coyote might not have sued Acme, if someone had been nice to him over the phone. Whatever the case may be, industry research can give you more clues about a company. These can come in handy when deciding about whether or not to apply with a particular firm.

You don't have to be an expert on the economy either, when looking for a job. Much the same way, you don't need to be a meteorologist, to read the weather report. But it is wise to have some idea of what the economy has in store for you in the forthcoming year. Let me share my experience with you. Last summer, one of the local internet service providers was looking for a copywriter. So I decided to apply. I sent in my resume, did my research, and even did a little networking. I felt good about my efforts. Then I began to wonder: what if they give me a job? Should I leave the security of the ivy-covered halls of academe and return to the hurly-burly world of business.

About that time, there British business magazine The Economist, had a cover story predicting the crash of the U.S. stock market and an end to the current economic boom. That article got my attention. It also made me wonder, did I want to leave my job just prior to a recession? I've been through recessions and project cancellations before. They can be endured. But would starting a new job be in my best interest, especially if the company's net value is based on the price of its stock? The Economist article did not stop me from applying for the job. But it did give me some additional topics for discussion whenever I fantasized about having a job interview with these folks. Fantasize was all I did, they never called back. Fortunately, The Economist's predictions were only partly true. The stock market did plummet, but only briefly. As of this writing, the U.S. economy is still going strong. The important thing to understand is that like a good chess player, I was not only studying my current move, but also thinking several moves ahead.

Brief snapshots of the economy can be found in the front of U.S. Industry & Trade Outlook, in the Occupational Outlook Handbook. The "Tomorrow's Jobs" section of the OOH is a good example, of economic research. How are the ups and downs of the economy going to affect you career plans. Think of it this way, you don't want to test the waters, if a shark by the name of Jaws is swimming offshore.

If you are planning on relocating, the library is an excellent place to do research on future home. The reference section of the CSUB library has versions of the Places Rated Almanac, The City and County Data Book, and American Business Climate & Economic Profiles.

This kind of research can also be done online using Yahoo (www.yahoo.com). Under the regional section, click on "US States." Choose a state, like California. Choose a city, I chose San Luis Obispo on the central coast. Yahoo's local directory provided a lot of information about the city, including employment, rental and real estate prices. There was a link to the local newspaper, which also had information about jobs, rents and housing prices. I was able to search for job openings, with Cal Poly San Luis, Cuesta College, The City of San Luis, and read the want ads from the local newspaper.

Then, to compare this with my memory of when I moved to Bakersfield, I looked at Yahoo's local web directory for Bakersfield. I was amazed at the amount of information available. I also found myself wishing that I could have accessed the web eleven years ago when I first moved to Bakersfield. I remember all the times I went down to the Kern County personnel office, to apply for jobs, take tests and be interviewed. But today, I had their web page up and could look at all their job offerings from the comfort of my office. I could also look for apartments or check house prices. I was able to look at churches, restaurants and cultural activities.

In this assignment, we will do the research we have talked about in previous paragraphs. Now to do that kind of research, we will use the Monsterboard, more simply known as www.monster.com.

Click on job search. On the job search page, there are three ways to search, location, job category and keyword. Just for practice, do a search in each.

Pick five jobs that you like. You don’t have to be qualified for them, pick ones that closely resemble your dream job, or that interest you, or in a place you want to live.

Find out as much as you can about each company, its industry, the state of economy whether it’s local, regional or national, and about the place where its located. Search the web, business directories, and periodical indexes. This will probably require you to create a fact sheet. Remember to include the information you’ve gathered from the OOH. Don’t be compulsive about that part of this process. You will be taking notes for this assignment. As I go through this process, I am amazed by the overwhelming amount of information that is out there. The challenge is to make sense out of your findings. The fact sheet will organize your notes to give them context.

For the two best jobs, write a brief, 250-500 word essay on what you found. Boil your finding down to baby talk. If you found nothing, say so. But if that is the case tell me what you think about the lack of data. Some of the information will be the same for each essay. If you’re looking for work for a job and not planning on relocating then there’s no reason to repeat this information. Conclude by saying whether or not you’d apply for the company and why. Send it to me. Also, compare it with the results of personal assessments. If you want to apply for the job, go ahead. Get the job, and you pass the class. Sorry, the management does not give refunds.

In terms of length, we have come to the conclusion of this module. It is a good time to stop and take a breather. In this module, we have started to find out how to research careers and to do research related to find a job. You have taken the information gleaned from your assessments, filtered them through the search engine of the Occupational Outlook Handbook. Assignment #1 gave you a job title or job family. Once you had that title, you could search other databases for job opportunities. But that was just one of the areas of research. In Assignment #2, you used the internet and local library resources to find information about prospective employers, their industries, and the economy. If you’re interested in relocating, now you know how to find information about prospective communities including as climate, cultural life, cost living, and housing prices. The assignment also required you to organize the information you gathered and then put them down on paper.

Both assignments also should have instilled in you the understanding that career and job research should become a lifelong activity. Every Sunday, I look in the want ads of our local paper. Occasionally, I submit my resume just to keep my hand in. This is what I hope you will do, after you’ve completed the course. Because as Coach Wooden would say, "When I am through learning, I am through."