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Job & Company Resources in Engineering, Computer Science & Technology

This guide lists resources at the library for employment seekers in the CS and engineering disciplines. Includes detailed instructions on how you can identify companies by industry in a specific location using library databases.

Industry Surveys - Standard & Poor's (S&P) NetAdvantage

Standard & Poor’s NetAdvantage (S&P) – Industry Surveys
https://libproxy.utdallas.edu/login?url=http://na.capitaliq.com/ip/UNITEXDAL

Standard & Poor's (S&P) NetAdvantage is a great starting point for company research via the Industry Surveys. These surveys are valuable for providing an overview of a particular industry, most importantly listing all publicly traded companies within that industry. With the information S&P provides, you can do targeted searching in other business databases for companies by industry and geography.

 

  1. Access S&P NetAdvantage  under the Databases tab on the library homepage.
     
  2. Click “Industry Surveys” in the navigation bar:

     
  3. Go to the Quick Search tab and select the following:
    Change Report Type to Industry Overview.
    Change Contributors to All Contributors.
    Put in your keyword and select your date range (defaults to the last 12 months).

     
  4. Your results should look something like this example (“biotechnology”):

     
  5. Look under the column Headline for a listing of industries related to your search term. In this case, “biotechnology” netted reports on pharmaceuticals, life sciences tools and services, biotechnology proper, health care providers, and so on. Click the Headline title to get the full Industry Survey (PDF).


    Tip: Depending on the industry you wish to research, it is typically best to use very basic, broad keywords. Try to keep the number of keywords to a minimum. For example, try the broader term “medical” instead of “biotechnology.” Be willing to experiment with terms and conduct multiple searches. Your first may not always be the best.

     
  6. Here is a small snapshot of a recent survey for Biotechnology:

     
  7. Go to the final pages of the document to look at the Comparative Company Analysis tables:

    Using a handful of the names in this list, you can search within the databases recommended in other parts of this guide to get SIC and NAICS codes. These standardized codes will then help in locating all companies in related industries.