The Top 3 Things to Research
Are you attending a corporate briefing for a company you know little about and you have only 30 minutes to prep? Has one of your professors asked you to meet with them later today to give you a lead about a job opportunity, and you want to quickly check out what you can about the company?
When short on time, tackle these areas first. You can conduct a more in-depth investigation if you pursue your lead(s) later on.
- Review company insider information: Go to Hoover's to get company profile, history, news, key personnel, etc. Hoover's also provides a comparison report that tracks the company's performance in relation to it's top competitors as well as its main industry. Look in Thomson One or Business Source Complete for a company's SWOT analysis. (Please note, Thomson One must be used in Internet Explorer.)
- Research your industry space: Read the industry profile in CareerBeam. Make sure to check their "Call Preparation Questions" and "Conversation Starters" suggested for your space.
- Review company financial information: Use Thomson One or visit Mann library and use Bloomberg or Capital IQ to get an overview of company financial highlights.
Getting to Vault
Vault reports provide the "inside scoop" on a company's strengths, culture, attitude toward diversity, promotional opportunities, and recruitment process. Create an account using your Cornell email address.
- FirstHandCornell students have access to a unique service that provides "insider" views of companies and industries. FirstHand (formerly known as Vault) provides insider information that include glimpses into a company's corporate culture, salary negotiation, interview tips, and more. You can also find diversity profiles, career advice, internships, salary surveys, message boards, and more. You must create a personal user account using your Cornell email address to access FirstHand.
Search Examples
To get articles about Google:
- Access Factiva through the library website.
- Under Search > Search Builder, click Company to expand the option.
- In the Company search box type Google and click on the appropriate result to add that company to the search. Note: since the parent company's name is Alphabet Inc., you may want to include that as well.
- Set your date range to as long or short as you would like (the default is the last 3 months). You can also select region, language, industry, etc.
- Click the Search button.
- If the results are too large, click the Modify Search button as use keywords in the Free Text Search box or other parameters to limit the results. Notice the examples link by the Free Text Search box. This has many useful suggestions as to how you can further filter your results.