Executive Job Search: Using LinkedIn's Company Follow

At the end of April, LinkedIn launched the new “Company Follow” feature, allowing you to stay current with the latest news from your target companies that have posted LinkedIn profiles. With nearly one million companies on LinkedIn, you’re bound to find many of those on your target list.

What’s so great about company follow?

By setting up “follows” for your target companies, you’ll receive email updates on their new developments, business opportunities, and jobs.

According to Ryan Roslansky in his LinkedIn blog post:

“This feature can deliver insights – you may be surprised at – such as the pace of hiring at your nearest competitor or the start of a whole new industry as you see web technology companies hiring geography teachers (for e.g.). Or better yet, you may find the job of a lifetime to do cause marketing for Major League Baseball.”

Additionally, once you follow a company, you and a link to your profile end up on that company’s list of followers. Chances are, people at that company are tracking who is following them. Hiring decision makers may notice you as a follower.

Using those lists of LinkedIn members following your target companies, you can expand your network to include fresh faces who may have similar interests. Check out their profiles, see what they’re about, and look at the LinkedIn Groups they belong to. You may want to join the same ones.

LinkedIn gives you two super simple ways to follow the companies of your choice:

From any company profile page: Click on the “Follow company” link at the very top of the right-hand sidebar.

From any person’s LinkedIn profile: Mouse over a company on a profile and click on the “Follow company” link at the bottom of the pop-up that appears.

Company profile pages also offer a wealth of information, such as:

A brief company overview
Current employees who have LinkedIn profiles and the number of them in your network
New hires
Former employees
Recent promotions and changes
Career path for employees before and after working there
Key statistics including company size, common job titles and percentage of employees holding those positions, median employee age and tenure, percentage of male versus female employees.
LinkedIn members following the company

Go to the Company Profiles homepage to find companies to follow. You can also access this homepage through the “More…” tab at the end of the menu along the top of any LinkedIn page (see “Companies” at the top of the drop-down list). LinkedIn even suggests a dozen or so companies you may want to follow.

LinkedIn says the 10 most followed companies are Google, IBM, Microsoft, Apple Inc., Facebook, Keller Williams Realty, Hewlett-Packard, Accenture, L’Oréal, and Cisco Systems.

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