Accurate company headcount

[VIyengar]

Hi All,

I know HubSpot automativally populates the company headcount in the "Number of employees" field whenever a new company is added, but the number retreived from the database is vastly different from the actual headcount on LinkedIn, and really can't be relied on.

(See table for reference)

Are there any best practices to deal with this descripancy? Because we're using this field for lead scoring and need it to be accurate. Alternatively, is there any integration that can overwrite this default HubSpot number?

Thanks in advance!

Company Name HubSpot populated headcount Actual headcount (LinkedIn) LinkedIn Range Morgan Stanley 10000 85792 10001+ Emblemhealth 5000 2737 1001 - 5000 FairPlay Engineering 200 37 51-200 Yobbers 200 58 51-200 Planon 1000 841 501-1000 Envalior 5000 951 1001 - 5000 Page Personnel 5000 3745 5001-10000 Northland Power 1000 723 501-1000 Workmotion 500 271 201-500 Knoell 500 535 501-1000

[TomM2 · Accepted solution]

Hey @VIyengar this is the joy of purchasing information. There's no "real" number here. This is entirely reliant upon the data source. Linkedin headcount for example counts based on how many people on linkedin have that company set as their current employer on linkedin. So, if I work for a company and don't have a linkedin account, or even, if I have a linkedin account and haven't linked my job description to the correct company I won't be counted towards that. 

Assuming HubSpot populates this information with data purchased from data brokers, the same way every other "data enrichment" tool will work, then it can only rely on what the latest data on a company is for sale. 

HubSpot rounds off the numbers and is used for a guideline only however, it's designed as a guideline for the size of the company, not an exact number of how many employees. 

Out of curiosity, what is the use case for you requiring the exact number of employees? I'd be curious to know what sales/marketing efforts might be different by knowing a company has 500 vs 1000 employees. 

[VIyengar]

Hey @TomM2 I know LinkedIn only counts people with accounts that have updated their profiles but for the niche we're targeting (employee-centric tech companies), this is quite reliable 99% of the time. 

The reason for wanting a more accurate number is because the headcount is something I'm using for lead scoring because our ICP is generally companies of a specific size.. not too small, not too large. 

Would you happen to know the different values HubSpot rounds up to? Are there pre-defined values or buckets?

TIA!