How do you find relevant companies?

We know it can be difficult to find the most relevant companies for an internship. This page provides two exercises to help you get started – with good results.

The first exercise is based on your joblog on Jobnet.dk. Although it can sound a little bit dull to use the Joblog, you can actually use it to your own advantage as it contains your own personal company database.

The second exercise utilizes data from LinkedIn to get inspired and find new possibilities.

Method 1: Use your Joblog to find companies

Step 1: Explore your joblog

If you receive unemployment benefits (dagpenge) it will not take you long to build up your own personal company database in your joblog in Jobnet. This gives you a list of companies that you have found interesting in one way or another.

Look at the list and see what companies you would like to reach out to again.
 

Step 2: Fill in your company list

As you choose the interesting companies from the list, make sure to collect their information in your company list. Feel free to use the company list presented on this page.
 

“But I was rejected when I applied for a job there…”

Although you might have been rejected when applying for a posted job at the company, they will most likely be happy to hear from you again. As long as you show genuine interest in getting an internship in their company. A point of entry could be a rejection because of lack of experience.

However, if you don’t like the thought of contacting the same person, you can use the list in the joblog to find other departments and points of contact to reach out to in the company.  

Method 2: Use LinkedIn to find companies

Step 1: Use LinkedIn to search for keywords and hashtags

Go to LinkedIn and use the search function to search for different keywords and hashtags that are relevant to your job search and internship company. It could be words like #communication #greenwashing #gdpr etc.

If you find it difficult to come up with keywords, you can use some of the words you find in the job postings you find interesting.
 

Step 2: Explore

Hopefully, your search has given you a lot of hits you can use in your search for relevant companies.

If you press ‘Companies’ you will find companies who have used the keyword in their biography.

You can also find relevant people who have either written a post using the hashtag or used it in their biographies. Do they work somewhere you could see yourself work too? Or have they worked somewhere interesting in the past?

Use the information to snoop around and find out what sounds interesting to you, as well as finding new inspiration for keywords, hashtags, people, or companies to search for.
 

Step 3: Fill in your company list

As you dig deeper into LinkedIn, don’t forget to write down the information you find. Once again, you can use the company list which you find on this page.

It can be a good idea to write down the point of contact as you find them: they can be both employees who can help you enter the company or a manager or HR department who you can talk directly to about an internship and the possibility of getting hired. 

“But my LinkedIn profile is not updated/ relevant/ active/ good enough…”

In order to get started with the exercise, your LinkedIn profile does not have to be perfect with all the graphics, endorsements, and documents.

Your profile is fine as long as it somewhat represents who you are and your wishes for tasks in a future job. It could be a good idea to spend half an hour updating the most important information. You also don’t have to start from scratch with your resume, but you can find inspiration on how to create your own resume.

Be careful that you don’t focus too much on irrelevant details. Getting in touch with the companies is more important!