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Packaging Horizons Professional Development Find That New Job First, Fast on 'Career Hotline Online' Late this summer, Women in Packaging unveiled its Packaging Career Hotline Online, an electronic job bank geared specifically for the packaging industry. The site features up-to-the-minute, broad-based advertisements in keeping with the mission of the association: to expand the horizons of women in the packaging industry. "Packaging Career Hotline Online gives employers an opportunity to show their interest and commitment to women and diversity," says Michelle Nordlinger, communications director, Women in Packaging, Atlanta. For companies wishing to post a job opening, the process works like this: E-mail or fax your job description/company profile. The ad is created and faxed back for approval. It is then posted immediately. Job seekers visiting the site will find search fields broken down by category--including sales, engineering, production and accounting, as well as industry-specific tasks, such as human resources with a specialty in packaging. Users can narrow their search to a specific state and find, for example, a package engineering position in New York. "Users can search and find immediately what they are looking for," says Rob Yoegel, online coordinator and editor for North American Publishing Co., Philadelphia, and developer and facilitator of Packaging Career Hotline Online. Additionally, Packaging Career Hotline Online is linked to other leading packaging industry magazines, such as Packaging Technology & Engineering and Package Printing and Converting, as well as the WP website. The Packaging Career Hotline Online, offering instantaneous exposure, compliments Career Hotline, published monthly by WP. To access Packaging Career Hotline Online, go to www.napco.com/wp/index.html, or to www.womeninpackaging.org. To post a job online or in the print version, contact Michelle Nordlinger at (770) 426-8424 or Rose Rosa at (215) 238-5421. Professional Assistance Ready, Set, Click and Connect By Michelle Dumas Crucial to a successful job search campaign is understanding how to research potential employers. The more you know about a company--their business objectives and goals--the better able you will be to communicate your value to them. You may wish to convey your understanding of their needs in a tailored resume and cover letter and you will definitely want to communicate this during your interview. The hard work that you put into your research will almost always pay off by reflecting your interest and enthusiasm to employers. Begin by trying to locate general information about each company you are interested in. Focus on details that will relate to your skills, knowledge and qualifications. You may wish to develop a filing system to organize the information that you obtain. Here are some ideas to get you started: What is the age of the company? What is their location? How long have they been established? How many locations are there? What are the services and products that they sell? What is the size of the company? How many employees do they have? What are their sales? Assets? Earnings? What has their growth pattern been like? What are the various divisions and subsidiaries? Who are their competitors? What are the names of key executives? What is the general reputation of the company? Is the company publicly or privately owned? Is the company foreign-owned? How successful is the company? What are their recent achievements? Have there been any major issues or events in the recent history of the company? What are the objectives and philosophy of the company? What is their forecast of anticipated growth? You may also want to gather several other items on each company whenever possible: Brochures and sales flyers Magazine and newspaper articles about the company Trade journal articles Reports from the Better Business Bureau Although the Internet will be an invaluable research resource, your college, university or local library is still one of the best places to locate information. The reference librarian should be able to point you in the direction of many useful directories and indexes. Examples of resources that you will find there are: Standard & Poor's Corporation Records: Contains information about publicly held companies, including financial records, brief history, products, subsidiaries and properties. World Business Directory: Profiles of 100,000 businesses worldwide. Ward's Business Directory: Data on publicly and privately held companies arranged alphabetically, geographically and by sales volume. When you are ready to go onto the Internet to begin your research, keep a few things in mind. 1. Know what you are looking for before you go online. Keep a list beside you so that you can cross items off as you locate them. It is too easy to become distracted if you do not remain focused. 2. Bookmark major sites as you come across them. Most browsers will allow you to create folders or directories to organize the links even further. Make the effort to stay organized. 3. Print out a hard copy of important information. If you are concerned about saving paper, you can save a copy of the document to your hard drive instead. There are numerous sites valuable for conducting research on employers. The links presented below will get you started by pointing you to some of the better ones. Chambers of Commerce You may want to begin by contacting the chambers of commerce in the communities your companies of interest are located in. You will find a searchable comprehensive directory of North American chambers of commerce at http://chamber-of-commerce.com/homepage.htm Company Homepages Many companies maintain homepages. Locate them by name, network, domain, location or industry http://www.internet.org/) or at JobTrak's Listing of Employer Profiles at http://www.jobtrak.com/profiles. Securities & Exchange Commission This site provides a searchable database of financial filings and annual reports of publicly owned companies. http://www.jobweb.org/sec.htm American Stock Exchange A listing of companies can be searched by stock symbol, company name or company homepage at http://www.amex.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/AmexWeb The Big Book This is an outstanding resource for finding companies listed by industry or state. http://www.bigbook.com Fortune 500 Search the Fortune 500 database by company or browse it by a variety of categories. Provides the Fortune 500 ranking, sales, profits and assets. http://www.pathfinder.com/fortune/fortune500/500list.html U.S. Federal Government Agencies Government agency homepages can be useful for both research purposes and for finding job-listings. The best directory is maintained by the LSU Library. http://www.lib.lsu.edu/gov/fedgov.html Michelle Dumas, CPRW, is a Certified Professional Resume Writer and the owner and operator of Distinctive Documents. From an office based in Somersworth, NH, Distinctive Documents provides comprehensive resume services to job hunters nationwide. For more information contact the author at (888) 894-9694, or via e-mail to resumes@distinctiveweb.com, or point your browser to http://www.distinctiveweb.com Professional Advice Tips for Posting Your Resume While searching for a job online may seem like the answer to every frustrated job seeker's prayers, there are still some quirks that must be worked out before the seamless transmission of information is error-free. Guidelines for creating an electronic resume vary greatly from all those rules you learned about proper printed resume design. "A customized resume going in the mail looks almost completely the opposite from a resume going online," says Susan O'Brien, director of Career Management Services in Boston. O'Brien offers a few pieces of advice to help ensure the successful posting of electronic resumes: Look for a company's filing instructions and follow it to the letter. Use a basic typeface (sans serif). Never use italics, bold, underlining or graphics. Make sure you have adequate white space. Use all caps if emphasizing a word or phrase. If using e-mail-saved copy as "text only" or ASCII, e-mail yourself a copy first to see how it looks. If your resume will be scanned, only laser printers (24-pin letter quality) will work. Maintain a 70 character per line count, maximum. Be sure to use key words, phrases, titles and skills that help companies match you to their openings. For example, if a real estate agent doesn't use words like "closing," the resume could be scanned out. Consider producing a key word summary at the top to make sure your resume stays in the computer system. RETURN TO PACKAGING HORIZONS EDITORIAL HIGHLIGHTS PAGE