Researching Your Employer
a guide to finding company information

PART I – BASIC COMPANY RESEARCH

Starting Points

Just beginning your company research?  You may want to start by locating the following types of information:

Ownership:
Is the company public or private?
Profile:
Company overview, history, etc.
Financial:
Corporate financial information
News:
Recent articles about the company

Resources for One-Stop Shopping

   Other sources:

Select a company and these resources will provide a single interface with access to profiles, financials, news and more.  Great places to start your search.

   D&B Million Dollar Database (RU restricted) Provides concise company profiles.  Includes brief executive biographies for some companies.

MarketLine (RU restricted)Provides Datamonitor reports and links to recent news articles.

  

LexisNexis Academic (RU restricted)
Select “Business.”   You can search for “Company Profiles,” “SEC Filings” and more.

Factiva (RU restricted)
Select “Companies/Markets” tab, then select “Company” to search for individual company profiles.
Provides links to latest news stories.
Public companies only.  (Private company profiles only contain latest news links.)

  

Business Source Premier (RU restricted)
Click on “Company Profiles” to search for company reports.

Yahoo! Finance
http://finance.yahoo.com/

WetFeet
http://www.wetfeet.com/
Includes brief company overviews and insider guides for a fee.

Hoover's Handbook of Private Companies. Austin, Tx: Hoover's Business Press, 2004.Kilmer Library (Livingston) HF5035.H68 yr. 2004 – REFERENCE

Mergent Online uses on financial aspects of public companies.

Includes links to SEC filings and annual reports.
Public companies only.

  

Hoover’s http://www.hoovers.com/free/
Free content includes links to news and SEC filings

  

PART II – TARGETED COMPANY RESEARCH

Digging Up Dirt

Resources that focus on the good, the bad and the ugly of major employers

Responsible Shopper

http://www.responsibleshopper.org/
A valuable resource that contains information about well-known, large public corporations.  Provides summaries of corporate issues such as labor, discrimination, diversity, fair employment, outsourcing, unionization, and worker benefits.  Links to information sources provided for further research and verification.
Public only.

Vault

http://www.vault.com/

A career information site.  Click on research to find information about one of over 4000 companies profiled by Vault, including public, private, non-profit, etc.  Vault provides “insider” type information on what it’s like to work for a company, straight from employee’s mouths.  While much of the juicier information is reserved for paying members, valuable information can be gleaned from the site’s snapshots and summaries.

LEGAL

TIP:If you are looking for a public company’s current legal entanglements, check their SEC filings.  The “Legal Proceedings” section of their 10-K lists current cases.  Where do you find SEC filings?  On the SEC’s website: http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html. 

You can also access SEC filings via Hoover’s, Mergent Online and LexisNexis. 

LexisNexis search tip: Try searching for a company as a “party name” in the “Get a Case” tab to see if you get any hits.

Executive Compensation

CEO Pay Database

http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/

Click on Search by Company Name to view the total compensation of CEOs.

SEC

http://www.sec.gov/

For salaries of top ranking officers of public companies.

Go to http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html to search for a company’s Annual Proxy Statement (Form DEF 14A). This filing reports executive compensation in all its gory detail, and may not be for the financially faint of heart.

(The SEC’s page on the subject: http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/execomp0803.htm)

Rankings and Awards

Fortune Top 100 Lists:

2006: http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&an=19397883

And the winners are….”  Fortune. January 23, 2006 vol. 153, issue 1: pp. 89-108.

2005: http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&an=15625969

“The 100 best companies to work for.”  Fortune. January 24, 2005 vol. 151, issue 2: pp. 61-90.

If the above links do not work, both articles are available via Business Source Premier (RU restricted)

Baldridge National Quality Program

http://www.quality.nist.gov/

Click on recipients to view award winners and read summaries of company best practices.

Great Place to Work Institute

http://www.greatplacetowork.com/index.php

Includes Best Companies Lists.  Also ranks medium and small-sized companies.

Business Ethics’ 100 Best Corporate Citizens

http://www.business-ethics.com/100best.htm

Forbes 500 Top Private Companies

http://www.forbes.com/2005/11/09/largest-private-companies_05private_land.html

Industry Reports

Business Source Premier (RU restricted)

To easily locate reports on an industry, use the alternate interface for this resource.  Click on the blue “Choose Databases” tab and select “Enhanced Business Searching Interface,” located next to Business Source Premier.  Select the button for “Industry” and enter search terms.

MarketLine (RU restricted)

Click on the “Industries” tab to browse or search.

Mergent Online (RU restricted)

Includes international as well as domestic industry reports.  Select the “Industry Reports” tab for a complete listing.

Yahoo! Finance – Industry Center

http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/

Also try Mintel Reports and Investext Plus.  These resources contain market research and analyst reports, respectively. (Both RU restricted)

Blog Search Engines

An alternative approach for finding the latest buzz on a company

Google Blog Search
 http://blogsearch.google.com/

Technorati

http://www.technorati.com/

**Anything found in blogs should be taken with a grain of salt and checked against reputable sources.  But you might find up-to-the minute “insider” type information that may not be available in traditional sources.

Good Luck!

Compiled by Connie Fontana

February 2006

cfontana@eden.rutgers.edu