LinkedIn company search

Bonnie HohhofFebruary 16, 2009 · SCIP 

Last year LinkedIn released its company search feature. After a year in Beta, I looked at what it provides that could be of interest to competitive intelligence practitioners.

To start, first Click on the “companies” heading at the top of the LinkedIn page, and you are offered the opportunity to find companies by keyword (can also limit search by country or postal code), by company name, or by industry. You can also get there by clicking on the company name in a person’s LinkedIn record.

Once you’ve identified the company you want to look at, LinkedIn gives you a short description of the company and employee information:

  • How many of their employees are on Linked in and a list of their names, titles, and locations from those individual entries. (Provides you a potential list of contacts, locations where the company has a facility, and the types of activities at a location as extrapolated from the titles.)
  • A list of their new hires, LinkedIn users who have indicated in their profile that they’ve recently joined this company. List includes their current title, their previous company and title, and how long ago they were hired. (Potential source of information on companies they left, an indication of specific movement from another company, the rate at which the company is hiring new people, and the specific knowledge base of the new hires.)
  • Recent promotions and changes, LinkedIn users who have recently indicated in their profile that they’ve recently changed positions at this company. List includes their current and previous titles, and when the change took place. (Where’s the growth aread in the company, potential dissolution of a specific department and replacement of those individuals in another part of the company.)
  • Popular profiles of Linkedin users who are highlighted because they may be actively in the news, referenced in blogs, participating in industry groups, and/or frequently the result of searches and other activities within the Linkedin network. (Identify the ‘movers and shakers’ of the organization.)

A section titled “related companies” also provides additional information:

  • A link to any division or subsidiary company record in LinkedIn. (company organization)
  • Common career paths for the company’s employees – companies they came from and companies they left to. (Companies working in similar areas, potential competitors.)
  • A list of companies that the company employees are most connected to. (People they know and talk to.)

The key statistics box gives you a variety of background information on the company.

  • The locations of the company and how many employees with LinkedIn profiles are at each location.
  • The headquarters address.
  • Type of company (public/private).
  • Company size.
  • Last years reported revenue.
  • When the company was founded.
  • The URL for the company website.
  • If available, a link to articles on the company in the popular business press.
  • Common job titles and percentage of employees in each one.
  • The top school employees attended
  • The media age of employees
  • Employee gender split in percentages

A handy box titled “Jobs” lists how many open positions in the company has posted on LinkedIn, a link to a list of those jobs, and then a link to each position’s details. A “news about” section provides titles, sources, and dates for the most recent three articles on the company, with a link to each one. And if the company is public, the page shows basic stock prices.

Think six degrees of corporate separation on steroids. Of course, accuracy is an issue when it comes to the data gathered from LinkedIn profiles, and most of the information and statistics are derived from those people profiles.

LinkedIn has a 3 minute video demo of the company profiles on their company profile page at http://blog.linkedin.com/2008/03/20/company-profile/ . This page also includes an interesting overview on how you find company profiles, and relevant people information modules.

Comments

2 Responses to “LinkedIn company search”

  1. Alan S. Michaels on February 19th, 2009 8:34 pm

    Very well written, thank you.

    Do you have time to write the full User Guide for LinkedIn? With your great writing skills, I’ll buy a copy.

  2. Ellen Naylor on February 22nd, 2009 2:25 am

    Hi Bonnie,

    Yes nice write up. Maybe another CI Foundation book in the offing, esp. if we offer it on-line so we can update it, and include other social networks like Twitter and Facebook…and who knows which others!

    Best,

    Ellen

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