What you don’t know about a potential employer (or your current employer) can hurt you badly!
Research with Google can help you discover if an employer is declining so you can avoid going to a bad employer or leave one that is headed for trouble.
Companies go out of business. Or, they layoff staff, and then go out of business.
Best not to be the last employee hired before the layoffs begin.
If you are unemployed, stay informed about potential employers so you can avoid pursuing employment with an employer who may stop hiring or may provide only short-term employment. You don’t want to be job hunting again very soon (right?).
If you are employed and your employer seems to be having a tough time, start thinking about moving on to another employer. Read Job-Hunt’s free Layoff Self-Defense ebook for suggestions about how to prepare to move on easily and smoothly.
Below, find more than 50 search queries in 5 categories of information that can be strong indicators of pending layoffs. Test them until you finds the queries that work the best for you.
Your mileage may vary. Companies with excellent management or very good luck can recover from setbacks, but not every company has excellent management or great luck.
Use Google Search for Career Self-Defense
Millions of businesses appear while others disappear or “down-size.” Constantly…
Fortunately, being well-informed is easier today than ever, thanks to Google.
Discover the bad news, or speculation, about your current employer — or a potential employer. Having your antenna up (with Google) should help you avoid moving into an employer or a group/division that is failing. You may also leave a bad situation (the employer as a whole or a vulnerable part of it) before all employees are branded as undesirable by other employers.
Most Google searches are automatically “Everything” searches which includes websites, images, video, shopping, and other options. To learn the latest about your employer (or potential employer), the “News” searches may be more helpful for this research. So, news.google.com is a great starting point!
Read the Google Search Ground Rules to understand what Google can and cannot do for you. Also check out Google-izing Your Job Search article for advanced search tips to better leverage Google.
How to Use These Queries
Try these Google searches. Some will work better for you than others, and some may not be appropriate for your situation. Refine your search based on the search results you get.
Copy the search queries below for your searches. Then:
- Replace the brackets [ ] and the words enclosed inside those brackets with the term described.
- Put quotation marks “around phrases” << like that.
So [insert company name] restructuring becomes “JP Morgan Chase” restructuring — if that is the employer you are researching.
General Bad News
This simple query will flag any bad news about a company –
[insert company name here] “bad news”
5 Kinds of Bad News
Searching for specific kinds of bad news can be the most effective way to uncover problems that may be developing.
1. Restructuring or closure of a plant or office
Try these searches to find information about part of a company shutting down, which usually means that some jobs will be lost (and probably not filled in other parts of the company as employees are transferred):
[insert company name here] restructuring
[insert company name here] “reduction in force”
[insert company name here] “down-sizing” OR downsizing
[insert company name here] “right-sizing” OR rightsizing
[insert company name here] “head count reduction” OR “headcount reduction”
[insert company name here] “layoff pending”
[insert company name here] “layoff planned”
[insert company name here] “reduction in head count” OR “reduction in headcount”
[insert company name here] “moving production”
[insert company name here] “halting production”
[insert company name here] “ending production”
[insert company name here] “stopping production”
[insert company name here] “plant closing”
[insert company name here] “office closing”
[insert company name here] “branch closing”
[insert company name here] “division closing”
[insert company name here] “shutting down”
[insert company name here] “consolidating operations”
[insert company name here] “ending production”
[insert company name here] closing
2. Drop in sales or revenue
Try these searches to find information about sales or revenue going down, which may lead to layoffs to reduce expenses –
[insert company name here] “sales drop”
[insert company name here] “reduction in sales”
[insert company name here] “earnings drop”
[insert company name here] “reduced profits”
[insert company name here] “profits drop”
[insert company name here] “revenue dropping”
[insert company name here] “negative revenue” forecast
[insert company name here] “negative outlook”
[insert company name here] “negative sales forecast”
[insert company name here] “negative revenue forecast”
3. Product or service discontinued
Try these searches to find information about products or services being discontinued because the people responsible for producing those products or providing those services may no longer be needed –
[insert company name here] “production discontinued”
[insert company name here] “production ending”
[insert company name here] “ending production”
[insert company name here] “will cease production” [insert product name here]
[insert company name here] “production ends” [insert product name here]
[insert company name here] “line closing” [insert product name here]
[insert company name here] discontinued [insert product name here]
[insert company name here] “no longer available” [insert product name here]
4. Company being sold
When a business is purchased by another business, the company doing the purchasing may eliminate jobs in the acquired company that are already being handled by their current employees. For example, two complete financial staffs may not be needed, so some employees of the acquired company may be laid off. Occasionally, employees in the acquiring company lose their jobs.
Try these searches for news about the employer being sold –
[insert company name here] “on the market”
[insert company name here] “looking to be acquired”
[insert company name here] “hoping to be acquired”
[insert company name here] “purchase pending”
[insert company name here] “pending purchase”
[insert company name here] “pending sale”
[insert company name here] “sale pending”
5. Executive or senior manager leaving
When senior executives leave unexpectedly, it may be a sign of turmoil in senior management, and that turmoil may signal the beginning of a decline. Or it may just be the change of one individual’s career. Pay attention if more than one executive seems to leave unexpectedly.
Try these searches to find news about executives leaving your target employers. Use the names of the members of top management. If you are employed, do this search on your current employer using the names of your manager and the other managers up the management structure to the head of the organization –
[insert company name here] “[insert executive name here]” resigned
[insert company name here] “[insert executive name here]” “resigned unexpectedly”
[insert company name here] “[insert executive name here]” departed
[insert company name here] “[insert executive name here]” “departure announced”
[insert company name here] “departure announced”
[insert company name here] resigned
[insert company name here] “resigned unexpectedly”
[insert company name here] fired “[insert executive name here]”
Save These Queries to Use Again
Once you have refined the searches and figured out which work the best for you, set up Google Alerts for the searches that seem the most productive for you.
Google will email the results to you. Read the Setting Up Google Alerts article for details on how to use Google Alerts.
Bottom Line
Being uninformed today is a dangerous habit. Often a strong or smart employer can overcome bad luck or a change in the economy and survive successfully for many more years. Both Google and Microsoft have had layoffs in the past few years, for example.
Sometimes bad luck or a bad strategy becomes a death spiral, so paying attention is the smartest strategy.
More About Using Google for Your Job Search:
- Guide to Using Google for Job Search
- Google Search Ground Rules
- Search Smarter: 7 Great Ways to Leverage Google’s Power for Your Job Search
- Defensive Googling: Know What Employers Find Associated with Your Name
- Smart Google Research for Successful Job Interviews
- Setting Up Google Alerts
- 5 Google Alerts for Your Job Search
Using Your Google Research in Job Interviews:
- How to Answer the Why-Do-You-Want-to-Work-Here Question
- How to Answer the Why-Should-We-Hire-You Question
- How to Answer the Do-You-Have-Any-Questions Question (50+ possible questions to ask)
- How to Answer the What-Do-You-Know-About-Us Question
About the author…
Online job search expert Susan P. Joyce has been observing the online job search world and teaching online job search skills since 1995. A veteran of the United States Marine Corps and a recent Visiting Scholar at the MIT Sloan School of Management, Susan is a two-time layoff “graduate” who has worked in human resources at Harvard University and in a compensation consulting firm. Since 1998, Susan has been editor and publisher of Job-Hunt.org. Follow Susan on Twitter at @jobhuntorg and on Facebook, LinkedIn.
More about this author…
Don't forget to share this article with friends!
