A big part of networking is to do your due diligence in researching a company BEFORE you make that call to a contact you have been referred to. 

With our digital world, we can now, with a click of our mouse, not only read the business pages about the company, review their financial records (not the case for privately held companies), and search for contacts and even jobs on their corporate sites.  Why do this? Well, just as companies “pre-screen” potential candidates, you should also be “pre-screening” the companies as well.  This ensure a good cultural fit when you review the missions and values of an organization and can validate that why you either would or would not want to work for an organization. 

Potential job seekers, that would be you, can now do go online and read everything that was just mentioned and you can now see what other people, previous employees and consumers are saying about the company you are interested in.  It’s one thing to get the company’s perspective on the corporate site; it’s an entirely different experience when you hear the voice of the employees past and present!

Just as you are reading this blog, there are thousands of other blogs out there in the blogosphere about organizations you may be interested in working for.  You can do a quick search on Google or Yahoo with the keyword “blog” and review the listings that come up for the various blog sites.

With thousands of sites to view, you can be sure you will find some that are negative and some that are positive.  Like everything else, you have to decipher through the angry “ex-employees” and those who truly have a story to tell.

The fact is, though, you can get a glimpse into a company that you would not normally be privy to during the interview process and you can “pre-screen” yourself in or out of that job.  In some cases you will find that organizations participate in various blogs as a way to answer questions and respond to potentially negative comments.  Forward-thinking employers will have blogs on the careers page of their corporate site to be able to respond to questions potential candidates may have.  Be sure to participate in these if you run across them.  The intention is to provide as much detail on the front end and allow you to make an informed choice regarding employment at that company. 

Be sure to include this tool as part of your overall strategy when researching organizations during your job search.