1. Visit the company website for insights into what they do and how they see themselves, take time to travel all over the website.
2. Google the company and also Google News (link is right above the basic dialog box for your Google searches) where you'll find media coverage of the company and its key executives.
3. www.vault.com and www.wetfeet.com will tell you what past and current employees think about their employer and can also give you great intelligence about your target company.
4. Cross reference your target company with your networking databases (HOTLINK TO 7 networks for your search) to find people who work or have worked at this organization and can give you insight into the company and the job. You might even come across biographies/resumes of the people who will interview you.

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Here are seven simple steps to dramatically improve your performance at job interviews and make a greater success of the job once you are in the saddle. Listen up, your ability to turn job interviews into job offers is going to undergo an exciting transformation.

Step #1 Understand Employer Priorities. Really know that target job by developing your own job description for the coming interview. Take any job description that is available from the employer or recruiter of the target job, and then collect six more job postings for the same job. From this collection create one single all-embracing job description:

• Find a requirement that is common to all 6 jobs. Write a single entry that captures how all employers seem to describe this area; be sure that you list all the keywords the different employers used to describe skills, responsibilities and deliverables in this one area.
• Repeat this process for every other responsibility common to all six jobs.
• Repeat this process again for requirements common to 5, 4, 3, 2 and then just 1of your collected job postings

The result is a comprehensive document that defines the priorities and demands of job and puts in your hands an outline of all probable areas of inquiry.

Step #2 Define the relevant skill sets you bring to the table. Under each bullet point created in Step #1, enter the relevant skills used in the execution of that particular responsibility, plus the education and/or special training necessary.

Step #3 Practical problem solving. Jobs hold one thing in common: success and failure ride on the solution and prevention of the problems that regularly occur in that job's daily grind. Think about your job in terms of the problems it is there to solve and to prevent, and then go through that first, "common to all six jobs" bullet in your composite job description and identify the typical problems that occur with executing this aspect of the job.

Consider the ways you have both prevented and tackled this type of problem in your work: addressing the problem's origin, followed by your analysis, the solution, its implementation and the results. Read More

1. Not all jobs are posted on commercial job banks
2. Not all jobs are posted where you happen to be looking
3. Not all jobs are posted

No one knows how many job banks there are, but include the commercial job banks, company job banks and headhunter job banks and it is in the millions; you can't possibly expect to find all the available opportunities given these numbers.

Now open your eyes to a new way to locate suitable companies, jobs and the hiring managers for those jobs.

Successful Job Search strategies focus on getting in conversations with the managers who can actually hire you; so the more target companies you can identify the more opportunities you have for getting into direct conversation with hiring managers. Try these four steps to add a new dimension to your job search strategy.

Step One. Find suitable target companies. Go to any job site and search job postings in your usual way, and then repeat your search with different parameters

1. Widen search using minimal keywords and restrictions
2. Search for postings of job titles that represent the people you interact with at work: look for the titles that come above, below and around yours. Save these postings

Using this approach will get you suitable postings as usual, a slew of companies who hire people like you (even if you didn't see a specific posting), and a mass of job postings that you can see no use for -- yet............Read More

Like many great ideas, the Executive Briefing is beautiful in its simplicity. It works as as an e-mail or on your standard letterhead. The job's requirements are listed on the left side, and your skills, matching the job's requirements point by point, are on the right. It looks like this:

To: rlstein
From: top10acct
Date: February 18, 2009 10:05:44 PM EST
Re: Accounting Manager

Dear Ms. Stein:

I have nine years of accounting experience and am responding to your recent posting for an Accounting Manager on CareerBuilder.com. Please allow me to highlight my skills as they relate to your stated requirements...........Read More

This means that writing a resume is serious business that

1. Requires an understanding of how recruitment and hiring strategies affect resumes
2. Demands the clarity of objective analysis to decide how best to package the commercial commodity that is the professional you
3. Insists on unique writing skills, because resumes abide by their own rules

When you've done the best you can and see that resume writing is never going to be your strength, you begin to realize that with your personal stability and professional future at stake, maybe you should think about a professionally written resume.

A professionally written resume takes time and thought to determine how best to package the professional you, then more time to write, edit, edit again with your input, then layout and polish the final document. Resume writing is a labor-intensive process for a marketing tool that is mission-critical to your job search; and like most things in life, you usually get what you pay for.

Working with a professional resume writer you get the writing skills, and the objectivity to determine the right focus for your situation, skills that come with writing resumes every day for a living.

The result, when you choose wisely, is a resume that opens the doors to more and better job opportunities, in less time, and with potentially higher earnings; assuming of course you have good professional skills to begin with and that you learn to use the resume effectively in your job search.

In addition you'll receive an education in self-awareness, personal branding and career management issues that you can leverage through the years.

What do professionally prepared resumes cost? Prices vary greatly, but the following accurately reflects the competitive mid-point you are likely to pay for resumes prepared by professionally credentialed and experienced resume writers:

Entry Level Resume: $295

Students, New Grads, Professional Trades (non-management), Customer Service (non management), Administrative (non management) and Professionals with up to 3 years experience

Professional Resume: $395

Professionals with 3+ years experience, not in management and not in IT or other Science/Technical careers

Mid-Career/Mid-Management Resume: $450 

Managers, Career Changers, IT and other Science/Technical careers

Senior Management/Executive Resume: $550

VP, SVP, EVP, Director-Level, C-Level, Entrepreneurs

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Your resume goes into resume databases that can have over 30 million other resumes against which yours has to compete. A resume that's simply a recitation of all you have done in your career is too unfocused to work well in this environment.

Here's how a resume database search works for the recruiter: like a Google search, he recruiter puts in keywords from a specific Job Description and up pop the resumes that match based on the frequency of the relevant keywords they have used.

So what can you do to create a resume that competes in this fierce environment? You can develop an understanding of what employers want when they hire someone like you, how they prioritize those needs and how they describe them.

Focus on the single target job title that captures what you can do best and analyze how employers think about and describe that job. Collect ½ a dozen Job Postings for your target job and deconstruct them, creating a composite job description for your target job: Prioritize the common requirements and the ALL the specific words and phrases used to describe them. From this composite you can say, "this is how employers think about and describe the job I want."........Read More

Step One. Collect 6-10 job postings of the job you are best qualified to do. Save them in a folder and also print them out. Not sure where to start? Try www.indeed.com, it's a job aggregator (or spider) that runs around thousands of job sites looking for jobs with your chosen keywords.

Step Two. Create a new MSWord doc and title it TJD for Target Job Deconstruction.

Start with a first subhead reading JOB TITLE, then copy and paste in all the variations from your samples. Looking at the result you can say, "when employers are hiring people like me they tend to describe the job title with these words."

This will help you to come up with a suitable Target Job Title for your resume, coming right after your name and contact information. This helps your resume perform well in resume database searches and acts as a headline giving human eyes an immediate focus.

Step Three. Add a second subhead titled

SKILLS/RESPONSIBILITIES/REQUIREMENTS/DELIVERABLES ETC

Look through all the print job postings across your desk for a single requirement that is common to all six of your job postings. Take the most complete description of that single requirement and copy and paste it (with a bullet) into your TJD doc; put a #6 by your entry to signify it is common to all.

Underneath this pasted entry add any other words and phrases from the other job postings used to describe this same area. Repeat this exercise for any other requirements common to all six of your job postings.

Step Four. Then repeat the exercise for requirements common to five of the jobs and then four and so on all the way down to those requirements mentioned in only one job posting.

When this is done you can look at your work and say, "when employers are hiring people like me they tend to refer to them by these job titles and they prioritize their needs in this way and use these words to describe them."

Step Five. This step will get you focused on the very practical competency issues of interest to employers, it is information you might well use in an interview as well as in your resume........Read More

Even when jobs are plentiful, most people don't get promotions to the next step up the professional ladder when they change jobs, because that would mean the employer gambling on an unknown quantity in a job the candidate had never done.

Typically, most professionals accept a position similar to the one they have now, one that hopefully offers opportunity for growth once their mettle is proved. This is why that next important step up the promotional ladder is better pursued the moment you start that next job and not when you start a job search in a tough economy.

Exceptions

1. When you are already doing that higher-level job but without the title recognition
2. The bigger the company the smaller the job title, so in a smaller company your skills might genuinely warrant a higher title.
3. When you can successfully combine experience and credentials from a number of jobs into a new in-demand configuration .....Read More

Live up to your dreams. Most people live up to their incomes instead of up to their dreams and a life of fulfillment. They let yearnings for ephemeral status and instant gratification derail the work it requires to bring life's dreams to reality. Commit to your dreams and more importantly to the pursuit of plans that will bring them to life.

Commit to your enlightened self-interest. You are somewhere in the midst of a half century work life, in which the statistics tell us, you are likely to have three or more distinct careers and on average will change jobs about once every four years.

Strategic career moves don't just happen, they begin with an awareness of the reality in which they will be pursued and the commitment to learn the strategies that will make them happen.

Make this the year you cease blind loyalty to a corporation that has none for you. In its place commit to enlightened self-interest and the long-term economic survival of " Me Inc."

Protect your job and boost your employability. Protect the job you have, for the security it brings and as a foundation for future growth. Everyday, technology changes the skills you need to compete in the workplace, so if you are not consistently developing new skills, you are being paid for abilities that are rapidly becoming obsolete.

There are a number of ways to maximize your skills, but the first steps always involve

1. Competitive analysis. Collect job postings for the job you hold now. Develop the skills that make you desirable to this employer and other companies.
2. Identify your next step up the professional ladder. Collect some more job postings for this promotion job title and do a GAP analysis between the skills you have and the skills you need to develop for that next step; develop these skills.
3. Talk to your boss, let him or her know you are committed to your job and making a difference with your presence in the department; ask about ways to improve your skills and performance, ask about how you can help.
4. Implement the advice, and follow-up informally every 6-8 weeks to communicate both your commitment and progress; this establishes credibility and visibility where it counts.
5. Look for problems that need solving, be alert for vacuums and volunteer to fill them. Make every effort to demonstrate that you are a committed team player.

Visible commitment and consistent skill development will result in inner-circle membership, better assignments, better raises, a more secure job and greater potential for promotion. Simultaneously, you will become a more desirable professional to other employers, further protecting your economic survival. Commit to execution of programs that secure your professional viability.

Don't try to change the world before you know the way to the restroom. No matter what apparent madness you see in the early days at the new company, trust that there is often some sound reasoning behind it; after all the paychecks don't bounce, so they must be doing something right.

• Your first task is to learn how best to execute your job in this environment
• Your second task is to establish good relationships with everyone who can affect your work
• Your third task is to gain a firm grasp on how and why things get done the way they do here
• Your fourth task is to identify the hierarchy and how it really works
• Your fifth task is to identify the Inner Circle players, those most respected professionals in the different departments with which you interact

God gave you one mouth and two ears. For your first few months on a new job you would do well to use them in the correct proportions. You want to be seen as a conscientious professional, a good-natured team player, someone always ready to lend a hand no matter what the job at hand, and someone who listens to advice and is gracious with thanks. Of course how you act on the advice proffered will depend on the source.

Get your feet on the ground. You need time to get to know the company, its services and its people while in turn those people need to get to know you. If you arrive and immediately begin re-inventing the company, it will be seen as arrogance......Read More