January 2001 Column

Industry Research on the internet

In keeping with this month’s Search Specialties theme, learn how to conduct basic research on the Internet. Most of the major industry trainers advocate that you perform some form of industry research, even if you aren’t changing industries, just so that you stay abreast of what companies are out there since the last time you checked. Industry research can be done quickly if you have the right tools and know how to use them. This article will walk you through some of the tools and techniques available while working through a hypothetical scenario to research an actual industry. As you follow the scenario you will encounter actual business problems and read which tools and techniques overcome them. You can apply this knowledge to your actual research problems. I’ve noted some great research tools that cost money, but have also shown you ways to put in some (considerable) effort and get what you need for free. To comprehensively cover this topic would require a book, so please understand that I’m only writing an overview on the topic.

Here is the case scenario: Let’s suppose you decided that you wanted to recruit and place in the wireless communications equipment industry but didn’t know anything about it. Who are the players in this industry sector, who are your most likely clients/sources? How do you drill down from there to find the candidates if you have never worked in that sector before? Here is how you do it:

The first problem is to identify the companies in this industry sector. There are several tools available to assist you. My first choice is usually Hoovers: www.hoovers.com. Let’s go there. Remember, in our scenario, you know nothing about this industry sector – no buzzwords, no companies… NOTHING. In the middle of your screen at hoovers.com is a heading called ‘Industry Update’. Below are ‘Strong’ and ‘Weak’ industries. Notice ‘Telecommunications’ and click that link. Next, click the tab marked ‘Analysis’ to get an overview of the industry segment. Now click the first Telecom Company listed – British Telecommunications. Assuming that you don’t plan to work in Europe, this data is not terribly important, but it does lead you to the tab called ‘Industry’. Click this tab to reveal, under ‘Secondary Industry’, ‘Wireless Communications Services’. Click this link to see an extensive list of companies and their capsules. Pause and reflect. At this point, we are well on our way to learning which companies will offer wireless services to the public, but we haven’t really learned who will develop and sell the technologies to these companies. Click back until you reach the page that contains the Telecommunications companies and these links:

Industries In This Sector

We have already visited the Wireless Communications Services, so let’s click the Wireless, Satellite & Microwave Communications Equipment link. If you have a hoovers.com license ($1,500 for 10 user license), you can click the link for SIC Codes. If not, start opening each capsule. The first one is Adaptive Broadband Corporation. Notice that they are really growing – 1-year employee growth of 78.4%. Sales are way up too - 1-year sales growth of 81.7%. Note the officers, contact information, and Key People bios. You can visit www.nasdaq.com to see more about this company. Now, continue to look at all the companies on the list to gather information. As you can see, Hoovers could be an even better resource if you had a license to pull more detailed information and SIC codes. Same thing applies to Dun & Bradstreet’s site (useless unless you have an account). If you research for a living, there is no excuse not to have these licenses. If the free techniques I’m describing don’t provide enough data – buy the licenses or contract the work out to a research professional. Pause and reflect. At this point, we haven’t spent any money and are well on our way to learning which companies will provide wireless technologies to the companies that offer wireless services to the public, but we haven’t comprehensively identified these companies.

Go to http://www.corporateinformation.com/.

This is a free site that will help us move forward to identify companies in the industry segment of interest. In option 2, ‘Research a Country’s Industry’, click the drop down and select ‘Telecommunications’ and in the country drop down, select ‘United States’, then click ‘Go’. We see 2 links under ‘Wireless’ (Wireless Top 200 and Wireless Magazine Buyers Guide). Click the ‘Wireless Top 200’ link. You have been transported to http://www.wirelessweek.com/. Scroll to the bottom of the page and notice the frame called ‘Industry Web Directories’. Click the link inside called ‘Vendors’. Wow! Here is a pretty good description of equipment vendors in the wireless sector of the telecom industry. Now you can take these back to hoovers.com for individual capsules or click the links to the individual company web sites to learn more.

Here is one more line of thinking – if you are researching telecom equipment vendors, they probably invent and patent a lot. Check it out at: http://www.delphion.com. Type ‘wireless’ for your search criteria and click the ‘Search’ button and you are presented with links to 6,066 patents! Open the first one to see if you are on track…

Inventor(s):                               Bales; Bruce Merrill , Louisville, CO
Applicant(s):                               Lucent Technologies Inc., Murray Hill, NJ
Issued/Filed Dates:                    July 14, 1998 / Dec. 13, 1995
Application Number:                   US1995000571570
IPC Class:                                  H09Q 7/20
ECLA Code:                              H04Q7/24N
Class:                                        Current:    455/403; 455/414; 455/426; 455/461; 455/560
                                                  Original: 455/403; 455/414; 455/560; 455/426; 455/461
Field of Search:                        455/403,422,426,436,445,560,414,461,435 379/207,211,67

Below this are the U.S. references:

Patent Inventor(s) Issued Applicant(s)
Title

US5311576 Brunson et al. 5 /1994 AT&T Bell Laboratories

Adjunct processor embedded in a switching system

US5325419 Connolly et al. 6 /1994 Ameritech Corporation

Wireless digital personal communications system having voice/data/image two-way calling and intercell hand-off

US5329578 Brennan et al. 7 /1994 Northern Telecom Limited

Personal communication service with mobility manager

US5329579 Brunson 7 /1994 AT&T Bell Laboratories

Modular adjunct processor made of identical multi-function modules adaptable under direction of one of them to perform any of the adjunct-processor functions

US5353331 Emery et al. 10 /1994 Bell Atlantic Network Services, Inc.

Personal communications service using wireline/wireless integration

We are clearly on the right track here and can go back and harvest tons of companies from the patents – as well as R&D candidates. This is a long arduous task for a guy trying to make money working a desk – remember my suggestion to farm this out to a researcher?

I could go on and on about profiling an industry, but from here I need to change directions and say – ok, you’ve found some companies, now how do you find the people? This is where AIRS training kicks in. You know the drill – you start by visiting each company’s web site… etc. For more on this, see all the previous articles Mark and I have written on these subjects.

Good hunting!

Wade

SOAPBOX TIME

Reading time – one minute. I hope you have noticed the shift this column has taken. We once talked a lot about the large, expensive Internet resume and job posting services that most of our clients use now. From time to time you will still see a review or recommendation for this type of service but it is normally one that offers a reasonable service at a reasonable price. We have been writing more about recruiting the more passive candidates on the Internet…locating those candidates whose resumes are not posted to large, nationwide services. We have also been writing on how to utilize the Internet to locate raw leads to use as a starting point for your search assignment. We have also written about many tools and services available to make more extensive use of the Internet. I believe Wade would agree we would continue to move in this direction.

I mention this at all because I feel our industry needs to move more in this direction. Wade and I give live Internet Recruiting presentations to groups from time to time. We always hand out a questionnaire asking what methods of Internet Recruiting do they use at their offices. Never fails that almost every response (from those who use Internet services) reads Monster…Monster…Monster/Headhunter…Monster. Seems like there are a lot of recruiters out there that belong to Monster, Headhunter or sometimes DICE or something like that and use those services exclusively for their Internet candidates. Even those few who say they have the AIRS training still use Monster and Headhunter for their candidates. From time to time I will see Alta Vista or SearchStation, but rarely.

Also, I recently interviewed a candidate for a sourcing job inside my own company. This person worked for a very large, well-known, nationwide permanent placement chain. His job title was ‘Internet Recruiter’ and his resume looked good. When I interviewed him I discovered that what he did for a living was to log onto Monster upon arriving at work in the morning and locate candidates posted to that service. He did this all day. That was their idea of an ‘Internet Recruiter’. Frankly at 25k per year he was overpaid. I could teach my soon to be seven year old son to do what he was doing if I could get him to sit still long enough.

Probably more on AIRS next year as well. They are going live soon with an Internet-based certification program. I have been promised that I will be one of the first in the nation to take the certification in this manner. More on that next month.

Anyway…if there is anything you would like to see in writing in this column please email Wade or I and we will be happy to comply. Best of luck in the coming year.

ALL IN ONE SUBMIT

I recently received an unsolicited email for a job order posting service. I receive many of these but checked them out because it seemed a reasonable price compared to other services performing the same type of work.

From the website: “All-In-One-Submit (www.allinonesubmit.com) allows you to post your job vacancies to multiple job sites by filling out a single online form. Their job requisition management tool will get your job posting in front of thousands of qualified candidates who are regular visitors to hundreds of different sites--and you don’t have to spend every waking hour on the Web. Whether you need IT professionals, sales stars, customer service reps or engineers, we’ve got you covered. Our service will deliver the candidates you’re looking for.”

They post to hundreds of free sites, Internet directories, online services, newsgroups, ISP’s, media classifieds (a new one for me) and also have partnerships with Monster and Headhunter and will post to those services if you are a member. Not bad.

You can post unlimited jobs without any long-term obligation or contract. Their normal pricing is $75.00 per month but they have a special going where if you subscribe now and they will give you 3 months of unlimited service for just $75 a month.

All In One Submit also offers its customers 25% discount on HeadHunter.net's VIP Resume Search. The savings is $900.00. Not bad either.

I spoke with Brian Emerick, their Account Manager. Anyone with any questions or comments can direct them to Brian by telephone at 773.867.7187 or email at bemerick@allinonesubmit.com.