Archives for Perfect Job

Until fairly recently the main measure of a company’s success was determined by its financial bottom line. Was it making a profit or was it sustaining losses? Although companies have been managing their activities by using their financial profits as their guiding light for a very long time, many stakeholders have sustained losses while the company’s shareholders have celebrated their wins.

Times are changing, and the way companies measure their success is too. Now in addition to watching financial outcomes, companies are assessing their impact on their physical surroundings and their community as well. When companies pay attention to the people they touch, the environment they impact, and the profits they make, leaders make more sustainable decisions overall. In fact, this way of doing business is causing companies to rethink how they produce their products and provide their services. In the process, the entire company system is becoming stronger.

Although the term triple bottom line may refer to specific reporting requirements, often it is used as shorthand for ventures that are socially responsible, green, and profitable.

Finding Triple Bottom Line Companies

With your desire to work for a sustainable, triple-bottom-line company — one that pays attention not just to profit but also to social and environmental impact — and that matches your career goals, you need a strategy to uncover companies in your area that fit the bill.

However, there aren’t many green/sustainable/triple bottom line company lists out there yet. To find these organizations, you must do your own legwork. To put yourself in the right frame of mind for this project, retire your job seeker persona for now and step into your detective alter ego. During this phase, you must be driven to uncover clues and follow them up to find what you’re looking for.

As you begin this process, create a spreadsheet and enter each potential company name as you find it. Include as much information as you can about each company’s Web site address, location, and type of business.

Let’s consider how to research each company to evaluate whether it’s a good fit for you and your needs.

Surveying media coverage

Media sources are valuable tools as you collect company names for your list. Consider the following sources:

*  Major media sources: If you’re looking for names of cutting-edge companies, look to lists of hot green companies put out by magazines and blogs. Newsweek and Fast Company are two media outlets that come to mind. Use these lists to spot trends, find company names, and take a fascinating look into the future.

* Local media: To find companies in your area, check local media sources to see if they’ve profiled any interesting green businesses or compiled a list of green companies in your area.

*  Niche media: Web sites that cater to a particular demographic group or geographic region may also provide valuable lists of green careers.

*  Press releases: Companies that have just launched, received funding, released a new product, or been included on a top green companies list are bound to distribute press releases to celebrate their achievement. In your favorite search engine, use terms such as “target industry” + “press release” to find relevant press releases.

Following the money

Financial news is also a source of information about green or sustainable companies.

*  Green investor information: Companies that help individual investors make good financial decisions often provide information about the companies that qualify for their green lists. Some financial entities show you stock quotes, whereas others tell you which companies are included in their funds. The Global 100 provides investors with a list of the 100 most sustainable corporations worldwide.

*  Venture capital updates: Where venture capitalists are investing gives you a broad sense of which industries are growing, staying stable, and contracting. If you dig into the blogs that report on companies that are getting new funding or additional rounds of funding, you can then track the company’s progress as they move their product to market.

*  Stimulus fund distributions: Until 2012, various governmental agencies will be awarding grants and distributing money to local governments, state governments, agency projects, and companies. Here is a place to track money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Finding the right lists and directories

Slowly but surely blogs and media sources are publishing lists of the top companies in various fields. When you find a list that matches your targeted industry, celebrate — you’ve just struck a vein of gold! To locate such a list for your industry, try a search using “target industry” + “company list.”

If you haven’t found a targeted list, you may be able to find the kinds of companies you’re looking for on a number of other lists:

*  Green energy/power lists: Several organizations, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report on companies that are purchasing the most green energy. This is actually a fairly good objective measure of a company’s green mission. Businessweek recently published a list of companies that have reduced their carbon footprint significantly.

*  Green business organizations: Another intriguing way to discover green or socially responsible companies is to identify associations where green businesses are members. Often these organizations, such as the Social Venture Network, include a list of their members on their Web sites.

*  Green business directories: Although some directories are like typical phone directories, where green businesses can purchase a listing, there are other green directories in which companies are screened to ensure that they meet the directory’s standards for sustainability. The Green Pages Directory is a good example.

*  Job boards: Although most people use job boards to find job openings, you can also use green job boards to research green/sustainable companies in a particular profession, industry, or geographic area. Most of the larger green/sustainable job boards include an advanced search function that allows you to filter results according to your criteria. If your profession or field has a job board of its own, check that one out too.

*  Sponsors: Another productive source of business names is to look at who is sponsoring your industry’s conference or your local community’s Earth Day celebration. Any company paying to sponsor an event is either brand new and trying to gain exposure or doing well enough to be able to afford the sponsorship fees.

Excerpt adapted from Green Careers For Dummies® by Carol McClelland, PhD, provided with permission by John Wiley & Sons. Available wherever books are sold.