Doing background research about a company or an industry is an extremely important part of the job search process.

Research will help you decide if you are interested in working for a company and it will help you be better prepared should you be invited to a job interview.

The following resources can help you find out more about companies, broad industry and labour market trends.

Finding Basic Corporate Information

• When you search for jobs, either using our job search template or one of the FastTracks, the name of the hiring company may appear with one or more small icons next to it.

Here is an example:

• Right next to the company name, you can see icons leading to Globe and Mail articles on the company (), information from the company web site (), stock information from our sister site globeinvestor.com (), a mini-profile from Report on Business () as well as a map showing the location of company headquarters ()

Tracking industry trends

• Business Information by Sector: Industry Canada has prepared detailed profiles of what's happening in various sectors of the Canadian economy. These profiles may include analysis of recent business, technological and employment trends, company directories, industry-specific news, events calendars etc...

• Job Futures is a publication of Human Resources Development Canada that provides outlooks by occupation and field of study up to the year 2007. The information includes types of employers who hire workers in each group, level of education and training required, earning levels and work prospects over the next few years. There are also many provincial/territorial labour market information sites available.

• Labour Market Information: this federal government service provides detailed information on local labour markets across Canada

• Industry and professional associations are key sources of information on employment and training needs, courses, conferences, legislation and other issues. Industry Canada has selected the major ones. Micromedia, a major Canadian publisher of reference materials, provides access to 20,000 associations in its Associations Canada 2003 database.