General Tips
- When in doubt, reach out!
- On the SRU/Local side of things, your librarians and Career Education and Development office are excellent resources.
- Nationally, many employers and graduate schools have Human Resources or Graduate Admissions departments that will help you answer difficult questions.
INVESTIGATE THIS FIRST, IF YOU HAVEN'T
- Slippery Rock University - Career Education and DevelopmentGo here first. Seriously, these people know their stuff.
All About Jobs
- Occupational Outlook HandbookProduced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, provides a wealth of information about potential occupations in the United States.
- Salary.comProvides basic information about estimated salaries, costs of living, and other details.
What should I be looking for?
- Article on Researching a CompanyAn offsite guide to researching a company. Note: Don't sign up for anything. SRU's Career Services Office does all the stuff this service claims to do and will be able to much better tailor it to you, an SRU student.
Explore Graduate Schools
Looking International? Try these:
- Global Road Warrior This link opens in a new windowGlobal Road Warrior provides detailed write-ups about all aspects of the world's countries. Some focuses include culture, customs, education, and history.
- globalEDGEglobalEDGE is a free resource maintained by the International Business Center at Michigan State University. It offers data on a slew of sources of interest to international entrepreneurs and students of international business, including country profiles, trade blocs, risk reports, and more.
Learn About Potential Employers with Library Resources
- Mergent Online This link opens in a new windowProvides the company overviews, ratios, prospects, and more. This is an ideal resource for company or competitive research. (Note: This database is limited to 20 concurrent users.)
- Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
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Provides full-text articles of scholarly journals in all disciplines of business, and financial data, industry reports, company profiles, SWOT analyses and more.
Company Research can help you answer questions related to your job search, application, or interview. These questions include but are not limited to:
- Which companies might I want to/be able to work for?
- Where is your company's corporate website?
- What is your company's history?
- Has your company been in the news lately?
- If so, for what?
- What is the company's culture like?
- Where does your company operate?
- Who are your company's closest competitors?
- What are their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats?
Learn About Your Employer's Industry
Industry Research can help you answer questions related to your job search, application, or interview. These questions include but are not limited to:
- What is your company's market share?
- Which industry or industries do they operate in?
- Is the industry shrinking? Growing? Staying the same?
- How might this industry look in five years, ten years, twenty years?
- What are your company's closest/fiercest competitors?
- IBISWorld This link opens in a new window
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This online resource offers access to over 700 United States industries. Includes industry reports, industry profiles, economic and demographic information.