Day 9: Nine Tools for Researching Leads

There are a number of free services you can subscribe to that will bring information on hot new companies – all potential employers -- straight to your desktop every morning. For example, nearly every newspaper on the web has some sort of “news alert” function, and you should subscribe to as many as needed to cover your career. Here are nine of the top sources for job leads:

1) ZoomInfo - ZoomInfo is the research tool I use the most. Are you in it? You should be! And listing yourself or checking your profile is free. When you register and create a ZoomInfo web summary, job opportunities can find you. An excellent resource.

2) America’s Career InfoNet – Their research tools for industry and occupations are second to none and they’re free. Check it out for yourself.

3) Just Sell – This tool will e-mail you a description of every company that has received new funding each week. The free report is divided by state or province and includes a description of the company and the purpose for each round of funding, and often includes the e-mail addresses of senior executives.

4) The Money Tree Survey – This is a quarterly study of venture capital investment activity in the United States. It’s a collaboration between PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thomson Venture Economics and the National Venture Capital Association. The information is excellent and it’s the only industry-endorsed research of its kind.

5) PE Week Wire – I get this free update every day. It’s the only industry publication that tracks and researches private equity deals for the entire venture capital market. The weekly newsletter and daily web updates give you in-depth news on industry trends, companies seeking investors, participating firms, deal conditions and more. It’s a valuable resource for me.

6) Dow Jones Venture Capital -- Tech, Life Sciences, HealthCare – Dow Jones Venture Capital tracks it and reports on it. Their conferences are second to none.

7) Vault – Their industry career guides are world famous. That you’ll find thousands of career opportunities on their web site is a nice bonus.

8) F***** Company – It’s the web site that can’t be named in family newspapers. If you’re worried that a potential employer isn’t being entirely honest about its financial prospects, check them out here.

9) Google Alerts -- These e-mail updates delivered to your e-mail address once a day are based on information you tell Google to watch for. I use Google Alerts to find leads on companies who have hired new VPs of Sales because these executives might need my services to help staff their teams. Experiment with it to find your own mix of industry and employment news.

The fundamental truth of job hunting is that it’s not always pleasant. It’s all about being rejected and ignored. And nobody enjoys that.

So, to make the process as quick and painless as possible, you need to feed your opportunity funnel the way a salesperson feeds his/her sales funnel. And the nine research tools we’ve covered here will accelerate your job search.