Research is the key to finding appropriate job openings, targeting the best possible employers and performing well when you go to job interviews. Learn what’s unique about a company compared to other firms in its industry. Learn why it’s prospering–or why it isn’t. Where is this company going? Is it favored by stock investors? Is it privately-owned by a family, or has it been acquired by private equity investors who plan to resell it over the mid-term? What are its hottest-selling products and services? Is it investing in research and new facilities so that it may prosper in the future? Also, as many people who have been laid off from failing firms have learned the hard way, determining a company’s level of financial stability can be one of the most important factors in making a career decision.

The more you’re willing to dig deep at the library or your college’s career planning office, and the more adept you are at using the internet for research, the better your chances of success in a job search. If you are willing to ask questions of knowledgeable businesspeople and of employees who currently work for your target employers, you will enhance your job search even further. The two secrets to successful job research are tenacity and focus. Know what to look for and where to find it.

Once you’ve landed an interview, you should research both the prospective employer and its industry even further. In this manner, you’ll know what questions to ask before you agree to take the job, and you’ll present yourself as a knowledgeable potential hire who is truly interested in the company and its business.

1) Financial Stability
Check bond ratings, credit ratings, debt level, growth in sales and growth in profits, along with the views of stock analysts and business journalists.

2) Growth Plans
Look for new plants, stores or offices to be opened; new technologies, products or divisions to be launched; or plans for strategic acquisitions. (See 3, 4 and 5 below.) Is the employer’s growth strategy focused primarily on offshoring work to overseas locations or outsourcing work to outside services providers? Or, does it have a balanced growth strategy that will create good opportunities in its American operations?

3) Research and Development Programs
If the company is a major manufacturer or a technology-based firm, then you should investigate how it invests in R&D (research and development). Is its research and development budget growing? For many types of companies, research is a vital investment in the future.

4) Product Launch and Production
Does the company have the ability to successfully launch new products and services (see 5 below) or to invest in and utilize cutting-edge technologies needed to maintain a competitive edge?

5) Marketing and Distribution Methods
Does the firm utilize an in-house sales force? Does it work through outside dealers and distribution partners? What are its advertising methods? Is it increasing its market share, or are competitors taking customers away? Is the company growing its international sales? Is it adept at using the internet as a powerful sales tool? Is it successful at selling into vital international markets?

6) Employee Benefits
Are wealth-building benefit plans offered? Will the company match all or part of your deposits to a 401(k) savings plan? Check for tuition reimbursement, pension plans, profit sharing, stock ownership plans, discount stock purchase plans, stock options or performance-based bonuses.

7) Quality-of-Work Factors
Does the company offer continual training, wellness programs, child care, elder care support, promote-from-within policies, flexible work schedules, performance reviews, product discounts or on-site health clubs? Is it a corporate culture that fits your lifestyle?

As a serious job seeker, you should conduct in-depth research and make detailed notes about these key factors for each firm you are considering. Then compare each company’s finances, plans and programs to others in the same industry. You’ll begin to see what makes some firms outstanding and why those outstanding companies are the best places to make a career investment. For example, if you compare two discount store giants, Wal-Mart and Costco, you will find that Wal-Mart is by far the larger firm, but Costco has an outstanding record of providing superior employee pay and benefits.

Your research goal should be twofold: First, determine whether this is a firm you want to work for. Are the salaries and benefits appealing? Are layoffs likely? Is it planning to expand its workforce in lower-cost nations like India and then lay off U.S. employees? Is the firm growing steadily? A growing company will offer opportunities for you to advance when it launches new locations, services, technologies or product lines. Second, develop a personal understanding of both the company and its industry so you can better sell yourself as a potential employee.

Certain industries have a greater tendency to offer advancement opportunities for women or minorities. Historically, the banking and insurance segments have tended to promote both women and minorities, as have retailing, electric utilities, apparel, consumer goods, packaged food and beverages, education, publishing and telephone companies.

Some technology companies have been terrific places for women who want to advance, and many tech companies, such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Yahoo, Xerox and eBay, have been known to post women to CEO spots.

Black Enterprise magazine publishes an annual list of the “Power in the Boardroom: Registry of Black Corporate Board Members,” (see www.blackenterprise.com). Meanwhile, the Executive Leadership Council, www.elcinfo.com, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group that conducts programs aimed at filling more executive posts with African Americans, has a unique statistic to report. Its membership is composed of senior-level black executives who have jobs that are no more than three levels below the CEO spot at Fortune 500 companies. When the group was founded in 1986, it had only a handful of members. Today, its membership is about 500 people employed in high-level executive jobs at major corporations (about one-third of them are women).

The Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility (www.hacr.org) promotes Hispanic advancement in the areas of employment, procurement, philanthropy and governance. Another nonprofit agency, National Hispanic Corporate Achievers (hispanicachievers.org), provides an educational forum for Hispanics working for Fortune 1000 companies.

Tips on Using Business Magazines, Newspapers and Trade Journals to Find Job Leads and Do Employer Research

Many job seekers overlook the tremendous advantages offered by industry magazines (called “trade journals”) and other publications when conducting research.

Industry-specific trade journals frequently have classified ads in the back that list job openings. An example of a great magazine to study is American Banker, which can be found at major libraries. Additional information is available at www.americanbanker.com.

Journalists at trade journals and business newspapers continuously interview industry-leading executives regarding their companies’ growth plans. New projects and company expansion plans described in these articles provide terrific job leads.

You can also get great contact information from these publications. Read the latest business stories about companies and industries that interest you and you will learn vital information. Best of all, you can glean from stories and interviews the names and titles of executives who lead projects, divisions and subsidiaries.

There are literally hundreds of these trade journals—at least one for each industry sector and sometimes dozens covering the largest industries.

Other great resources include business newspapers such as the Dallas/Ft. Worth Business Journal, The Wall Street Journal, the business pages of major newspapers like The New York Times and publications written for major investors like Investor’s Business Daily. www.bizjournals.com, you can gain access to news stories from business journals from all over the U.S.

Many companies offer benefits that help employees balance their personal and professional lives. The concept is that employees who are healthy and comfortable with their personal and family lives make better, more productive employees. To that end, many companies include fitness programs and family services such as extended maternity leaves and child care or elder care, whether on-site or off-site in the form of referral services. Other popular family-friendly benefits include flextime, flexible benefits spending accounts, adoption assistance and telecommuting. In many cases, benefits are listed on employers’ web sites.

Work-Life has become a popular phrase for family-friendly benefits and programs among major employers such as Intel, Abbott Laboratories, Baxter International and Aramark. For additional information, you can study such organizations at WorldatWork (formerly the Alliance for Work-Life Progress) site at www.awlp.org

A firm’s growth potential should be among your top priorities. Companies are always trying to maintain or increase productivity, or the ratio of revenues per employee. If a company’s sales are sliding, or if it is running out of cash, the job picture starts to collapse. A little extra research into a company’s finances and true potential for growth might save you from a future layoff.

Of course, employers sometimes must resort to layoffs due to conditions outside of their control. The devastating economic recession that officially ran from late 2007 through early 2009 led to millions of layoffs in America.

As a job seeker, you’re forced to look out for your own best interests while you sort through thousands of potential employers in dozens of industries. This means that good research is vital. For example, if you put salary at the top of your list, you may have the wrong priorities. From time to time, some of the highest-paying firms have been among those cutting the largest numbers of employees. If you are looking for job stability, your biggest challenge is to pick companies that are more likely to hire now and less likely to have layoffs in the future. That’s why a firm’s growth outlook should be one of your guiding lights.

However, the goal is internal growth caused by expanding sales. Generally less appealing are firms that post a quick spike in growth through big mergers. (In many cases, merged companies lay off people who suddenly find themselves filling jobs duplicated in newly consolidated offices. Also, companies that grow excessively through acquisitions may be taking on loads of debt that can become hard to handle later. However, there are occasional exceptions to this rule, where firms are enjoying soaring demand for products or services and find it difficult to hire quickly enough to keep up.) Companies that are growing rapidly through internal expansion include those opening new stores, distribution centers or offices, developing exciting new products, moving into new markets (including international markets) and creating hot new technologies, retail formats or services. Those types of expansion frequently mean great career opportunities, including the chance for rapid job promotion.

If you’re tenacious, you can find opportunities where others will find only rejection. Identifying real prospects for growth takes more than a quick glance.

Here’s an extremely important point for you to remember: You should also look for opportunities in growing divisions that serve special niches, even when the company as a whole is cutting jobs. For example, a firm’s online division may be growing, even while its traditional business units are shrinking.

1) Companies or divisions with a growing share of a promising market.

Here’s an extremely important point for you to remember: You should also look for opportunities in growing divisions that serve special niches, even when the company as a whole is cutting jobs. For example, a firm’s online division may be growing, even while its traditional business units are shrinking.

Microsoft made its way to the top with unique products serving a soaring market when it developed highly functional software for personal computers. The software giant created thousands of millionaire employees through the immense increase in the value of its stock plans. HEB, an innovative grocer in Texas, has evolved continually over the decades, constantly introducing improvements to store layouts, and even creating an exciting new HEB Marketplace concept that is a retail industry leader. HEB has large numbers of job openings of many types on a continuous basis.

The point to these stories is that you shouldn't invest your career in a company with mediocre prospects. With perseverance, you can target your own list of employers that are posting growth due to competitive advantages or growing market demand. Your best bets are companies taking reasonable risks in order to move ahead. Those risks may include investments in advertising, research and development, new technology, improved techniques on the manufacturing floor, testing of new products and the opening of new retail store formats. For example, Chico’s FAS stores scored a hit by filling a niche in the women’s apparel market, and Genentech became a leader in the biotechnology field by risking vast amounts on research. Also, don’t overlook the potential of the export market—many American firms find much of their growth by creating products and services that enjoy demand overseas as well as in the U.S.

2) Sales and profits: past and present.

The companies most likely to move along at a good clip are those with an exciting mid-term history. Firms with an average annual growth in sales of 10% to 15% or more over the past several years are generally very promising. Many small and mid-size firms grow at much faster rates and find themselves hiring continuously.

3) Beware of fads.

Unfortunately, a few companies post meteoric growth in businesses that turn out to be mere fads. The restaurant industry suffers from this problem on a regular basis. In recent years, companies selling bagels, frozen yogurt, rotisserie chicken and the like enjoyed impressive, nationwide growth only to collapse like a house of cards a couple of years later.

Superior sources used by sophisticated job researchers include reports written by: 1) analysts; 2) professional researchers and executives; and 3) journalists at business magazines and industry-specific web sites. Many major libraries have large collections of industry-specific “trade magazines” that can give you vital clues that competing job seekers will overlook. Virtually every industry is covered by one or two major websites and trade magazines that will give you leads to growing companies. Many articles in these resources contain the names of executives you may want to contact. Also, some trade magazines publish help-wanted ads in the back. It’s easy to do an online search for trade magazines and industry-specific websites, and many of them are filled with extremely useful information. For example, a recent search on Google for “pet industry trade magazine” quickly turned up leads to the top magazines for that sector.

Next, move on to reports from experts. Marketing and investment professionals are looking for some of the same clues you should use as a job seeker, and reports written by full-time analysts who cover specific companies or industries can help you find firms that are growing and hiring. Search the internet for white papers, industry reports and studies that cover your industry of interest.

Professionally written market research can be found at Marketresearch.com, www.marketresearch.com. This market research broker charges varying fees for access to the reports. However, many of the reports are reasonably priced, and the insight you gain into industries, markets and leading companies can be extremely helpful. Web sites such as this offer the ability to search for reports by a wide variety of criteria, including company name and industry.

Internet Research Tip:

Be sure to create Google “Alerts” to follow your targeted employers and profession. Google will email results to you daily.

By going to the “more” link at the top of the Google home page, and then selecting “even more” from the drop-down list, you can access Google’s “Alerts” tool. Here you can arrange to receive email updates on topics of your choice. For example, you can set a general alert about an industry or locale: sales jobs in California, for example. Or something like: opportunities in the American wireless industry. Or even: sales jobs at automobile dealers.

You can use alerts to track specific jobs or employers. For example: openings at Intel. Or: regional sales manager opening Los Angeles. Finally, don’t forget that you may want to put a search phrase within quotes to get an exact match to part of your phrase. For example: “loan officer” wanted.

Annual Reports/10-Ks/S-1s: : Companies that sell their stocks to the public, including most of the firms covered in this book, publish annual reports that contain a wealth of information. Annual reports and 10-Ks cover yearly results, financial statements, management practices and other vital information for publicly held firms. S-1s provide the same type of information on companies that are selling stock to the public for the first time. You can find copies of these reports at large libraries. Online, the best place to acquire this information is at typically at the “Investors” tab on the website of the company you are researching. Alternately, try the site of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. They have a user-friendly service that enables you to search for companies and access their financial reports at www.sec.gov. (Look for the “Filings & Forms” section, and then see “Search for Company Filings.”) Look especially at the five-year “summary financial statement” in the back of these reports. Also, look for growth in sales and earnings. If these are falling, dig deeper to find out why. Faltering sales or profits can lead to layoffs or to a merger with another firm (which could result in deep job cuts).

Also, you can find a wealth of financial information on publicly-traded firms at Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Finance.

See Chapter 4, "Important Contacts for Job Seekers," for additional places to get basic corporate data.

Tips on utilizing financial documents filed by publicly held firms

(Access these documents at the Securities Exchange Commission, www.sec.gov.)

10-K (also called Annual Report on Form 10-K):
This is an annual filing required by federal law. It follows a standard format. Information includes a complete description of the business, risk factors, historical financial data and much more. It is vital reading for job seekers. You will find that these documents are written in dry, legal language, but they contain a wealth of information.

DEF 14A Proxy Statement:
This is an annual document that gives shareholders certain options to consider at their annual meeting. It names the firm’s board of directors and top management. It also gives the dollar value and description of salaries, bonuses, pension plans, stock options and other benefits enjoyed by the company’s five highest-paid officers. Job seekers can learn a great deal about a firm’s management, pay and benefits from this document. Included is a list of the people or organizations that own more than 5% of the company’s stock.

S-1:
This is a new registration document for companies that are going public for the first time. In other words, they are creating an IPO (initial public offering). The information includes all of the data found in the 10-K and proxy statement filed annually by companies that have been public for more than one year.

10-Q:
This is a quarterly report detailing a company’s latest sales, profits and balance sheet.

1) Check out its bond rating.
There’s no sense in trying to become a financial analyst on your own. Use internet searches to look for the bond ratings of potential employers. These ratings are based on a company’s ability to pay principal and interest when due. If you’re considering a major corporation with a bond rating of less than BB (an indicator that a company’s debt is riskier than “investment grade”), you should do a lot more investigating before you continue chasing a job at that company.

2) Talk to vendors and current employees.
Talk to employees who work for the employer, or talk to people who do business with it. No one knows what’s really going on better than people who are on the scene. If there are problems that are not yet known by the media, or if there are exciting new developments that have not yet been announced, you may find out a lot just by asking around. While you’re at it, ask about corporate culture—how well are employees treated?

Popular Job-Search Internet Sites

CareerBuilder www.careerbuilder.com
Monster www.monster.com
Indeed www.indeed.com

Tips on Finding Information on Privately Held Employers

Our subscription service, Plunkett Research Online, and our printed Plunkett’s industry almanacs, are among the world’s most highly regarded sources of profiles of privately-held companies. Check with your library to see if you have access to these tools.

Study back-issue indexes and archives to major newspapers to see what journalists are reporting about a prospective private employer. Many libraries have recent issues of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and other important business newspapers. At major public and university libraries, you may be able to access online databases like ProQuest. These databases have excellent search engines that lead you into online archives of the best publications, including The Wall Street Journal, as well as many trade magazines and local business journals.

For smaller firms, go online and try American Journalism Review at www.newslink.org where you'll be able to search news sites including hometown newspapers across the nation. Likewise, search local business newspapers at www.bizjournals.com, where you'll find links to dozens of major business weeklies like the Houston Business Journal.

Finally, invest in a credit report. If you really want reassurance, go to Experian SmartBusinessReports, www.smartbusinessreports.com. You can use its links to order a credit report on the employer. These reports are reasonably priced, and they can help you determine whether the company is paying its bills on time or has other problems. This could be vital in helping you determine whether to accept a job at a privately-held firm.

3) Use Internet search engines.
Look up your firm and industry in an internet search engine such as Google. (You may need to click on “News” instead of relying on a general web search.) There, you may find unusual articles that were recently written about a company’s product breakthroughs, treatment of women or minorities, human interest stories, training programs or stories written from other unique slants.

4) Study other business books and guides.
Search at a library or at an online bookseller like Amazon.com for recent books regarding major companies. For example, if you want to apply to biotech leader Genentech for a job, don’t fail to read The Billion Dollar Molecule: One Company’s Quest for the Perfect Drug. With a little research, you can turn up many other excellent books about specific companies, from banks like Bank of America to publishers like Gannett.

Great places for industry research

Plunkett Research, plunkettresearch.com.
Go to the specific industry of your choice to see an overview of trends and statistics.  At our subscription service, www.plunkettresearchonline.com, subscribers have access to thousands of pages of industry analysis, statistics, contacts and company profiles, along with multiple search and export tools.

Vault.com, www.vault.com
This site publishes insights about careers with hundreds of leading firms.

5) Explore industry-specific web sites.
In particular, study the leading industry associations for the sector in which you want to work. You will find listings of hundreds of the most important organizations, professional societies and resources, personally selected by our editors, in the almanacs published by Plunkett Research, Ltd., and in the contacts databases at Plunkett Research Online.

6) Research benefits and pension plans.
For additional information about corporate pension plans, start with the government agency charged with protecting and regulating pensions: the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, 1200 K St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20005-4026, 202-326-4000, www.pbgc.gov.  They can answer certain questions over the telephone.

The U.S. Department of Labor publishes a useful site titled Consumer Information on Retirement Plans, https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/retirement/consumerinfpension .

The Social Security Administration, 800-772-1213, http://www.ssa.gov, can provide you with information regarding your potential Social Security benefits.

Note: Generally, employees covered by wealth-building benefit plans do not fully own (“vest in”) funds contributed on their behalf by the employer until as many as five years of service with that employer have passed. All pension plans are voluntary—that is, employers are not obligated to offer pensions.

Pension Plans: The type and generosity of these plans vary widely from firm to firm. Caution: Some employers refer to plans as “pension” or “retirement” plans when they are actually 401(k) savings plans that require a contribution by the employee.

Defined Benefit Pension Plans: Pension plans that do not require a contribution from the employee are infrequently offered. However, a few companies, particularly larger employers in high-profit-margin industries, offer defined benefit pension plans where the employee is guaranteed to receive a set pension benefit upon retirement. The amount of the benefit is determined by the years of service with the company and the employee’s salary during the later years of employment. The longer a person works for the employer, the higher the retirement benefit. These defined benefit plans are funded entirely by the employer. The benefits, up to a reasonable limit, are guaranteed by the Federal Government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. These plans are not portable—if you leave the company, you cannot transfer your benefits into a different plan. Instead, upon retirement you will receive the benefits that vested during your service with the company. If your employer offers a pension plan, it must give you a “summary plan description” within 90 days of the date you join the plan. You can also request a “summary annual report” of the plan, and once every 12 months you may request an “individual benefit statement” accounting of your interest in the plan.

Defined Contribution Plans: These are quite different. They do not guarantee a certain amount of pension benefit. Instead, they set out circumstances under which the employer will make a contribution to a plan on your behalf. The most common example is the 401(k) savings plan. Pension benefits are not guaranteed under these plans.

Cash Balance Pension Plans: These plans were recently invented. They are hybrid plans—part defined benefit and part defined contribution. Many employers have converted their older defined benefit plans into cash balance plans. The employer makes deposits (or credits a given amount of money) on the employee’s behalf, usually based on a percentage of pay. Employee accounts grow based on a predetermined interest benchmark, such as the interest rate on Treasury Bonds. There are some advantages to these plans, particularly for younger workers: a) The benefits, up to a reasonable limit, are guaranteed by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. b) Benefits are portable—they can be moved to another plan when the employee changes companies. c) Younger workers and those who spend a shorter number of years with an employer may receive higher benefits than they would under a traditional defined benefit plan.

ESOP Stock Plan (Employees’ Stock Ownership Plan): This type of plan is in wide use. Typically, the plan borrows money from a bank and uses those funds to purchase a large block of the corporation’s stock. The corporation makes contributions to the plan over a period of time, and the stock purchase loan is eventually paid off. The value of the plan grows significantly as long as the market price of the stock holds up. Qualified employees are allocated a share of the plan based on their length of service and their level of salary. Under federal regulations, participants in ESOPs are allowed to diversify their account holdings in set percentages that rise as the employee ages and gains years of service with the company. In this manner, not all of the employee’s assets are tied up in the employer’s stock.

Savings Plan, 401(k): Under this type of plan, employees make a tax-deferred deposit into an account. In the best plans, the company makes annual matching donations to the employees’ accounts, typically in some proportion to deposits made by the employees themselves. A good plan will match one-half of employee deposits of up to 6% of wages. For example, an employee earning $50,000 yearly might deposit $3,000 (6%) into the plan. The company will match one-half of the employee’s deposit, or $1,500. The plan grows on a tax-deferred basis, similar to an IRA. A very generous plan will match 100% of employee deposits. However, some plans do not call for the employer to make a matching deposit at all. Other plans call for a matching contribution to be made at the discretion of the firm’s board of directors. Actual terms of these plans vary widely from firm to firm. Generally, these savings plans allow employees to deposit as much as 15% of salary into the plan on a tax-deferred basis. However, the portion that the company uses to calculate its matching deposit is generally limited to a maximum of 6%. Employees should take care to diversify the holdings in their 401(k) accounts, and most people should seek professional guidance or investment management for their accounts. (Note: when profits are down, many employers exercise their right to suspend their contributions to 401(k)s. Employees may continue to make contributions, but they will not be matched by the employer in these cases.)

Stock Purchase Plan: Qualified employees may purchase the company’s common stock at a price below its market value under a specific plan. Typically, the employee is limited to investing a small percentage of wages in this plan. The discount may range from 5% to 15%. Some of these plans allow for deposits to be made through regular monthly payroll deductions. However, new accounting rules for corporations, along with other factors, are leading many companies to curtail these plans—dropping the discount allowed, cutting the maximum yearly stock purchase or otherwise making the plans less generous or appealing.

Profit Sharing: Qualified employees are awarded an annual amount equal to some portion of a company’s profits. In a very generous plan, the pool of money awarded to employees would be 15% of profits. Typically, this money is deposited into a long-term retirement account. Caution: Some employers refer to plans as “profit sharing” when they are actually 401(k) savings plans. True profit sharing plans are rarely offered.

1) Internet-Based Services:
Plunkett Research Online is a reference service that is subscribed to by the nation’s leading university placement offices, libraries and information offices. You can use it to filter prospective employers by location, industry, size and more. You can then export contact information for those companies into spreadsheets or text files. In addition, you can use the site to research the latest editions of our industry analysis. Many additional tools for job seekers are included. For an extensive online tour, see plunkettresearch.com .

Plunkett’s Industry Almanacs:
Plunkett Research also publishes industry-specific almanacs for the world’s most vital industries. They are available in both printed and eBook editions. These are top-notch resources for job seekers.

•  Plunkett's Advertising & Branding Industry Almanac
• Plunkett’s Aerospace, Aircraft, Satellites & Drones Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett's Airline, Hotel & Travel Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett’s Almanac of Middle Market Companies
•  Plunkett's Apparel & Textiles Industry Almanac
• Plunkett’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Machine Learning Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett’s Automobile Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett’s Banking, Mortgages & Credit Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett's Biotech & Genetics Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett’s Chemicals, Coatings & Plastics Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett's Consulting Industry Almanac
• Plunkett’s Consumer Products, Cosmetics, Hair & Personal Services Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett's E-Commerce & Internet Business Almanac
• Plunkett's Education, EdTech and MOOCs Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett's Energy Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett's Engineering & Research Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett's Entertainment & Media Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett’s Food Industry Almanac
• Plunkett’s Games, Apps & Social Media Industry
• Plunkett’s Green Technology Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett's Health Care Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett’s Insurance Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett's InfoTech Industry Almanac
• Plunkett's Internet of Things (IoT) & Machine-to-Machine (M2M) Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett’s Investment & Securities Industry Almanac
•   Plunkett’s Manufacturing & Robotics Industry
•  Plunkett's Nanotechnology & MEMS Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett’s Outsourcing & Offshoring Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett's Real Estate & Construction Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett’s Renewable, Alternative & Hydrogen Energy Industry Almanac
• Plunkett’s Restaurant & Hospitality Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett's Retail Industry Almanac
• Plunkett’s Sharing & Gig Economy, Freelance Workers & On-Demand Delivery Almanac
•  Plunkett’s Sports Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett's Telecommunications Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett’s Transportation, Supply Chain & Logistics Industry Almanac
•  Plunkett’s Wireless & Cellular Telephone Industry Almanac
• Publications from Plunkett Research Written Especially for Job Seekers :
•  The Almanac of American Employers
•  Plunkett's Companion to the Almanac of American Employers

Our books will give you in-depth coverage of specific industries and the leading firms in those industries, along with trends and developments in technology and services. You will find these books in public and academic libraries, college placement offices, human resources offices, corporate libraries and government agency libraries. For sample chapters and additional details, you can preview as well as purchase these books at plunkettresearch.com.

The Almanac of American Employers provides profiles and detailed listings of 500 hand-picked, U.S. employers of 2,500 employees or more in size Plunkett's Companion to The Almanac of American Employers is our book that provides profiles on 500 additional, rapidly growing corporate employers. This companion book covers smaller firms than those in the main volume of The Almanac of American Employers.