LinkedIn's new tools let you peek behind the curtain at companies
LinkedIn is making it easier for its users -- especially businesses -- to take a closer look at what's going on inside the companies they follow, including their competitors.
The company is rolling out a new set of tools, called premium insights, which help its premium users learn more about competitors and others in their industry.
Available to Business Plus, Sales Navigator and some Talent Solutions subscribers (that's all of LinkedIn's premium tiers, except for its Job Seeker level), the new insights are meant to help users "make smarter, more informed business decisions," the company says.
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Premium insights include data around hiring and job openings, total employee count and employee roles, as well as "notable alumni" -- where senior employees go after they leave a company. Beginning today, premium users of the service can take a look at this information for any company that has 30 or more employees with LinkedIn profiles.
Though all of the stats are based on information that's already publicly available on LinkedIn, the insights offer an at-a-glance look at the state of a business' hiring and growth. (Previously, tracking down similar statistics would take dozens of detailed searches for each insight.)
The "total employee count" number (above), for instance, provides a look at both a company's hiring trends but also its turnover. The new hires section (below) gets even more specific, with an emphasis on senior management turnover and where incoming executives are being hired from.
The tool also looks at more general areas, such as how employees are distributed across a particular company and an overview of its current job openings.
The company says this type of data should prove particularly useful to investors and other professionals who tend to keep a close eye on industry trends and the state of their competition.
All the new features are currently limited to premium subscribers, though LinkedIn says it plans to improve upon and add to the new insights going forward.
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Topics LinkedIn
Karissa was Mashable's Senior Tech Reporter, and is based in San Francisco. She covers social media platforms, Silicon Valley, and the many ways technology is changing our lives. Her work has also appeared in Wired, Macworld, Popular Mechanics, and The Wirecutter. In her free time, she enjoys snowboarding and watching too many cat videos on Instagram. Follow her on Twitter @karissabe.
