Consulting Jobs -- Career Research for MBAs  Tags: business careers consulting  

Impress recruiters by knowing specific details about recent events affecting the company and the industry.  Perhaps they recently hired new top executives or they were affected by industry or market changes.

If the company is publicly traded, it is essential that you visit their investor relations webpage and take a look at their most recent annual report and 10K or 10Q.

Finding a company's investor relations page is as easy as "googling" the company name and "investor relations".

Jon Klein States Importance of Researching Company And Speaking To Network Prior To Job Interview

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You can find company profiles from databases like Hoovers and Capital IQ. You may also be able to find profiles via Business Source Complete.

Finding a company profile in Hoovers:

1. Access Hoovers Online.
2. Enter the company name in the search box and click the Search button.
3. You may need to then select your company from a list of results. You can sort results by name, location, or sales.

Finding a company profile in Capital IQ:

1. Log into your Capital IQ account.
2. Enter the company name in the search box in the upper left and hit enter.
3. Select the company from the resulting list and click the Go button.

Finding a company profile in Business Source Complete:

1. Access Business Source Complete.
2. Click the Company Profiles link in the blue menubar at the top of the screen.
3. Enter the company name in the search box and click the Browse button.
4. Click the PDF link for the Datamonitor Report to access the profile.

Finding a company profile in CareerBeam:

1. Access CareerBeam.
2. Click the Organization link in the top Databases menu.
3. Enter the company name in the search box and click the Go button.

Consultants need to be experts in areas ranging from industries to companies to global trends. This will require deep research and networking as well as keeping up-to-date with the consulting industry. Some consulting websites and journals to be aware of include:

Consultants News (Not to be confused with Consultant News) this bi-weekly journal has been covering the consulting industry since 1970 and is available at the Management Library.

Consulting Magazine contains articles, video podcasts, and its annual ranking of the top 25 firms to work for.

Consultant News this UK-based website has news articles on specific consulting firms, job listings, links, and access to Consulting Times.

Find more information from consulting associations such as the Canadian Association of Management Consultants, the American Associatin of Healthcare Consultants. You can find associations by searching Associations Unlimited.

Use RSS to track industry and company news.

You can have an RSS feed go directly into a reader like Google Reader, your email client like Outlook, or a mashup like Pageflakes.

There are two ways you can add an RSS feed for the site you want to receive updates from to your RSS Reader.

1. Most common: Copy feed URL and paste it into an "Add a subscription" field in your RSS Reader.
2. Click the "Subscribe" link or the  button on the site you want to receive updates from and follow their directions.