While writing the hacks for my new LinkedIn CheatSheet for recruiters I was tinkering around with some reversing techniques and stumbled upon an incredible discovery called “LinkedIn Company Pages.”

As my fellow seekers you’ve observed that one of the driving philosophies in my research is constant tinkering. That’s how I come up with hacks like those in the CheatSheet. It is my deeply rooted belief that paths with no obstacles lead nowhere. So, I keep poking around until I find an obstacle and traverse it. This often leaves me with a profound sense of accomplishment, but not always with techniques I can easily demonstrate. I vet my methods thoroughly before I introduce them to you but in this case, no further testing is required. I just had to get the word out.

Can you imagine being able to know from what five companies and three universities your competitors hire most? Suppose you could also tell how long employees stay employed at your competitors and how many years of total experience they have. Well, knowing this is the next natural evolution of Social Network. After all, 7 million people have voluntarily revealed this information in their profiles so it was only a matter of time before someone put it all together and painted a picture.

And here’s just that picture!

According to LinkedIn, IBM employees average14 years of experience, stick around for just over five years and come from companies like PWC, Rational, Peoplesoft and Accenture. The picture goes on to say IBM loves graduates from UT Austin, NC State, and U. of Toronto. Along with this revealing data you can also view the public profiles of 750+ Business Development and 3,000+ Sales personnel, 4500+ Engineering employees, 500+ Finance folks, 300+ HR people, 350+ IT staffers, 800+ Marketing employees, 400+ Operations workers at IBM.

Wow.

* P.S. For more hacks that will empower you to go beyond some of LinkedIn's built-in limitations, check out the LinkedIn CheatSheet.

** P.P.S. Happy CyberSleuthing!