Researching Companies and Organizations for Your Job Search
*Accessing "NU Community" resources from outside of the NU network* Companies Identifying Companies
| Public vs. Private
| Parent vs. Subsidiary | Organizations / Non-ProfitsIdentifying Organizations / Non-Profits | Gathering Further Information | Additional Resources Identifying Companiesby type of business, location, size, etc.Searching by Type of Businessis sometimes easier if you have identified SIC codes (Standard Industry Classification codes) or NAICS codes (North American Industry Classification codes). Both SIC and NAICS are in use today however NAICS is slowly replacing SIC in the United States as the standard classification system for identifying products, services, industries and companies. Many resources, such as several of the following, allow for searching by SIC and / or NAICS codes along with searching by location, sales, company size, and public vs. private companies. Public vs. Private CompaniesPublic companies are those companies whose shares/stocks are traded on US or foreign stock exchanges . Public companies are required to submit financial and operational information to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in order that it is freely available to potential investors. Some of the best sources for information on public companies are those companies' SEC filings and their annual reports to shareholders. Private companies do not trade stock on public stock exchanges. Instead, they are owned privately within the company or by private investors and are not required to file their information with the SEC. Thus, there is not as much information freely-available on private companies as there is on public companies. The following company directories will allow you to identify companies through screening on a variety of criteria.
Parent vs. Subsidiary Companies If a private or public company is a
subsidiary or division of another company, it will not always be
listed separately. When researching a subsidiary, look both under
the parent company and the subsidiary. If
you are unsure of whether a company you are interested in is a subsidiary
or if you know it is a subsidiary but you do not know the parent
company, you might start with... US vs. Foreign CompaniesThere are foreign companies with subsidiaries and operations in the US and conversely, US companies operating abroad. If a foreign public company is traded on a US stock exchange, information will be readily available via the SEC and other sites.
For more help, look at the handouts: Gathering Further Information on CompaniesOnce you've identified companies of interest, your next step will be to find background information, whether that be about the company's financial situation, products, history, competitors of the company, industry background,recent news and events, etc. Along with visiting the company's own website, look to the following sources... Company Profiles and Industry Reports
News and Research Articles
Additional Resources
Identifying Organizations / Non-ProfitsOrganizations, Charities, Associations, Educational Institutions...
Governmental Organizations
Gathering Further Information on OrganizationsAlong with visiting the organization's own website, look to the following sources for background information... News Sources
Chronicle
of Higher Education NU Community Research Articles and Literature PAIS
International NU
Community Worldwide
Political Science Abstracts NU Community CIAO:
Columbia International Affairs Online NU
Community ABI/Inform
ProQuest NU Community Browse other indexes to articles from NU Libraries Additional
Resources International jobs: Where
they are, how to get them.
For further assistance, contact: Jami
Xu Jeannette Moss |
