Target List

There are many ways to develop your target list of organizations, Steve Dalton’s LAMP list method from The 2-Hour Job Search is just one method, but it has efficient and effective approaches that we will encourage you to utilize and customize in the development of your target list. It also takes only 70 minutes to create! The LAMP list method asks you to take action on the following questions to populate your target list columns: 

• L = What organizations are potential employers?
• A = Do advocates (potentially alumni) work for the organization?
• M = What is your motivation level to work for this organization?
• P = Is the organization currently hiring? Are there job postings?

We suggest you start your Target List with a manageable number of organizations, which we define as around 40. Always keep in mind your list will change over time as new organizations are added, some are removed, or the list is re-prioritized. You may be wondering, can I do less or can I do more than 40?

To create your Target List you can create your own or download a blank LAMP template at https://2hourjobsearch.com/resources. Excel is the recommended format as it allows for ease in sorting your target organizations. Dalton’s four approaches to adding organizations are listing:

1. Dream Employers
2. Alumni (or affinity) Employers
3. Actively Hiring Employers
4. Trending or Open to Sponsorship Employers

As you start your LAMP list, stay focused on the task. Now is not the time to get lost exploring websites or organizations. Focus is a key ingredient to creating your LAMP list in 70 minutes, and to the search process as a whole. 

A dream employer is like a dream college; it is an organization that you aspire to work for. Your dream organizations will be the start of your target list. You can take dream organizations a step further, by looking up related organizations. This is a great way to add more organizations within the same field to your list. If you see organizations you do not recognize, add them to your list. At this point, do not research them as this would take you away from the task.

Dream Employer Exercise  – 10 minutes or 10 organizations, whichever comes 2nd

Start with your dream employers and look up related organizations. Remember to add organizations that are both known and unknown to you. The unknown organizations can be researched at a later time.

Dream Employer Search Resources

You can search related organizations using:

• DiversityReports.org: Collection of diversity data from companies of all sizes and across industries who have joined the movement to make their diversity data open. All the data shared is either self-reported by companies or pulled directly from public diversity reports
• Google Finance
• LinkedIn
• Crunchbase (free version) 
• Interstride.com & myvisajobs.com: A list of organizations that have sponsored in the past. Why is this information about past sponsorship helpful? Well, if an organization sponsored in the past they are likely to do so in the future. The key word is likely, and this does not mean they will sponsor. This strategy works well for large, multinational companies, but is harder with smaller companies. Small employers may not have sponsored last year because no one was qualified, so unless a small organization explicitly states they do not sponsor, do not rule out small organizations using this approach.

Demonstration of Google Finance (transcript)

In this approach you will use alumni working at an organization of interest and doing something you are interested in to add organizations to your list. Use websites, such as LinkedIn or the Duke Alumni Directory to search through the organizations employing Duke Engineering Master’s graduates. At this time, you do not need to write down the name or contact information, simply add the organization to the L column. 

Alumni/Advocates Exercise  – 10 minutes or 10 organizations, whichever comes 2nd

Utilize alumni databases, from Duke, your undergraduate institution, from any past employers, LinkedIn or the EMP First Destination Outcomes to add organizations to your target list. Once again, add organizations you might not know if you align with the field and role. 

Alumni/Advocates Search Resources

Demonstration of the LinkedIn Alumni search (transcript)  Within LinkedIn there are also groups that you can join to connect with Duke Alumni, such as the Duke University Alumni Network. 

Demonstration of the Duke Alumni Directory (transcript)

Advice: If you don’t remember if you already added an organization to your list or not, that is okay. Go ahead and add it so you do not leave off any, when you sort your list you will be able to delete any duplicates.   

The posting search approach allows you to find additional organizations through a job search engine, like Indeed.com. In a search engine you input the “what” and/or “where”. The “what” could be a job title or your Duke degree title. The “where” could be a city, state, or zip code, or it could be left blank if you are not constrained by location. After entering the information, quickly scan the results and take note of the organizations of interest to you, either in a role, field, or both! 

Once again, don’t limit yourself and add all organizations you find – you can research them later! Be careful here not to get lost in researching organizations or clicking on outside websites. The goal of this task is to find new organizations to add to your target list efficiently. This approach does limit you to the organizations that are hiring at the time that you complete the search, but can be done at multiple points during your search. 

Posting Search Approach Exercise  –  10 minutes or 10 organizations, whichever comes 2nd

Use job posting searches to add organizations to your list. While it will be tempting, do not click on the jobs postings, but use this approach to find organizations to add to your Target List.

Posting Search Resources

Websites such as Indeed.com, Google Jobs, and Linkup.com are useful resources. Indeed.com is recommended by Steve Dalton as the one search engine to use during the posting search approach.

Demonstration on searching on Indeed.com (transcript)

In the trending employers approach you will use articles about trends in the field to add organizations to your list. Using a search engine, such as Google or Baidu, search the field or role of interest to you along with the word “trends”. Scan the articles for names of organizations to add to your list.

*If you are an international student and you require sponsorship, use Interstride.com or myvisajobs.com to search for employers that have sponsored international students in the past. 

This approach will allow you to gain knowledge about roles and/or fields of interest to you, while also learning about new organizations. The knowledge you learn will be beneficial to other aspects of the search, as employers want informed and credible employees. This approach will introduce you to smaller employers, so add organizations even if they do not recognize their name.  

-Trending or Open to Sponsorship Employers Approach Exercise  –  10 minutes or 10 organizations, whichever comes 2nd

Use the trend following approach to add organizations to your list. Make sure to scan the articles to learn about new organizations efficiently and effectively.

Trending Employers Search Resources

Demonstration on following trends and setting up alerts in Google (transcript)

Alumni/Advocate Exercise  – 10 minutes for all 40 organizations

Motivation is essential to you completing a project, such as a job/internship search. In the motivation column of the target list you will use a numerical scale to rate your motivation for working at each organization. Once again, you want to use your time wisely so go with your initial gut feeling and do not complete any outside or additional research. A rating of 3 denotes your dream employer, 3 is a 2nd tier employer, 1 is for an employer you don’t care for and 0 is for a company you don’t know enough about. It is ok to have 0s on your list. You can set aside time on another day to go back and research these as a separate task. If you choose to do this research later, you can sort your list to feature the “0s” and spend a bit of time learning more about them in order to enter a true motivation ranking.

Remember you should not do any additional research, but just go through and assign a motivation number based on how you feel about the organization at that moment. 

Motivation Exercise  –  5 minutes for all 40 organizations

Complete the motivation column of your target list.

The column for postings will be populated with information on the quantity and quality of postings from your target organizations. Use a job search engine website, such as Indeed.com to see if they have open positions. In The 2-Hour Job Search this section is ranked on a numerical scale of 1 to 3. If you are curious about this method, feel free to investigate further on your own. For your purposes, we encourage you to approach this section with a Y or N. You would use a Y for yes in the column if you find any full-time postings for the organization and no if you do not find any full-time postings.

Remember, the key is to search efficiently and effectively – don’t get lost reading the job descriptions or researching organizations. 

Search Tip: If your organization has two names, use quotations around the full name while searching. 

Posting Exercise – 15 minutes for all 40 organizations

Complete the posting column of your target list. Use your time valuably and fight your desire to click and further research any postings you find.