Key Tools for Conducting Company Research

• The Best Sources
• Go to your favorite search engine (such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, or YoySearch), and find the company's Web site. Most public companies have a section of their Web sites dedicated to investor relations and often have their annual reports online and in downloadable form.
• Web-based Secondary Sources:
• IRIN -- The Investor Relations Information Network : a clearinghouse of annual reports, fact books, and press releases.
• Web100 -- Big Business on the Web: tracks the largest American and international companies on the Web (ranked by revenue), listing these corporations along with their Fortune500 and Global500 rankings. Can search for companies or scroll through rankings. Links under each company to sites that have more information about the companies.
• Hoover's Online: once self-proclaimed as "the ultimate source for company information," this Web site offers a lot of information -- very little for free and most for a fee.
• Canadian Business Resource: offers in-depth information and profiles as well as links to more than 2,600 of Canada's top performing businesses -- some for free and some for a fee.
• Vault.com: well-known for its insider reports on thousands of companies.
• StockMarketYellowPages.com: allows you to search for public companies based upon their descriptions, where you can then follow links to other sources (including Zack's, Hoovers, BigCharts, and more) of key information about the company.
• The Forbes 500: a comprehensive database of the 500 largest American public corporations as measured by sales, profits, assets, and market value.
• Forbes Largest Private Companies : an annual ranking of the top private companies in the U.S., including number of employees, sales ranking, and a brief company description.
• Fortune.com Lists: a variety of lists of the "best" and largest public companies, as well as links to industry information, and other lists.
• The Inc. 500: a listing and short description of the 500 fastest growing privately-held companies in the U.S.
• Better Business Bureau: Includes links to companies that are members of the organization.
• Small Business Administration Online Library: offers a great collection of information about business trends and small businesses.
• Web-based Company Research Links:
• Allstocks.com's World's Largest Investors Links: where you can find links to all kinds of information about companies and industry analyses.
• Yahoo! Business and Economy: Companies: provides links to company Web sites.

Key Tools for Conducting Industry Research

• Web-based Industry Research Links
• Fuld & Company: an excellent source of information on a wide range of industries.
• Industry Portals: a nice collection of industry portals for many different industries.

Key Tools for Conducting Country Research

• Online Country Research Resources
• CountryReports.org: a great source for finding top-line information about just about every country in the world, including culture, geography, economy, political system, news, maps, and more.
• Country Studies: from the U.S. Library of Congress. These guides cover social, economic, political, and national security systems and institutions of more than 100 countries throughout the world.
• globalEDGE: a comprehensive global business resource center from the folks at Michigan State University. Key strength are links to further information.
• International Business & Technology: a learning portal that provides links to business, communication, import-export, linguistic, legal, marketing, media, monetary, public affairs, research, technology, trade, and travel information at both world and country levels. From BRINT Institute.
• Sperling's BestPlaces.net: where you'll find a wealth of data, statistics, and comparisons about U.S. cities, counties, and foreign countries.
• Virtual International Business & Economic Sources: a portal to more than 1,600 Internet sources of international business and economic information. From the folks at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
• World Trade Organization: a great source of worldwide business and trade information and trends.

Key Tools for Conducting Research on People/Individuals

• ZoomInfo: a great tool for researching people. Calls itself a unique summarization search engine that finds, understands and extracts the latest online information about people and companies and instantly delivers it to you in concise and useful summaries. No cost to job-seekers.

Other Key Research Tools/Resources for Job-Seekers

• Other Guides to Researching Companies
• Researching Companies: from the great folks at JobStar: California Job Search Guide.
• Internet/Web-Based Reference Resources
• Indispensible Writing Resources: Internet Reference Resources on the Web: a great place to find resources to get information about companies and industries, with links to libraries and reference material on the Web.
• Media Clearinghouses
• Media Jumpstation: from the folks at Imediafax a search engine to more than 3,000 media.
• MediaLinksNow.com: supplying links to the publishers, catalogs, newspapers, industrial, technology, sports, fitness, financial, health magazines and news originations from around the world.
• NewsDirectory: providing links to newspapers and media in the U.S. and internationally.
• NewsLink: with links to major U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, and radio and television stations
• Business Networking
• LinkedIn: With LinkedIn, you find the people, jobs and services you need through the people you know and trust, while you strengthen and extend your existing network.
• Relocation
• Orbitz.com: Build your trip, and find a great deal!