(FORTUNE Magazine) – These days people will do anything to buff their resumes. But rather than learn Swahili, why not gain skills that will make your boss think twice before handing you a pink slip? We're talking about competitive intelligence, also known as corporate spying (though the espionage label is inaccurate and loathed by professionals).

CI analysts gather data to help companies keep tabs on competitors--poring over public records, for example, to create a P&L statement for a privately held rival (not poking in Microsoft's garbage). "We teach people how to do a lot with a little," says CI guru Leonard Fuld, founder of the eponymous CI consulting firm and co-owner of the Fuld-Gilad-Herring Academy of Competitive Intelligence.

The academy has beefed up its competitive intelligence professional (CIP) certification program and now offers continuing-education units universally recognized by employers. (Fuld and the ACI have offered certification since 1999.) Last spring 23 people completed the nine-course program, which can be done in ten days or split into segments through the fall or spring. Courses are held in Chicago and Cambridge, Mass.; they'll hit Amsterdam next year. The package costs $9,765; basic courses are $995.

Fuld's program isn't the only way to earn your snooping chops. Boston's Simmons College launched a CI certification program for working professionals earlier this year, and Drexel University has offered an online program since 1999. "We have a lot of [CI pros] asking for certification--it's a hot topic in business," says Paul Dishman, an associate professor at Brigham Young University's Marriott School of Management and vice president of education at the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals. SCIP plans to offer its own certification program by the spring of 2002.

Competitive intelligence is being taken more seriously in academia as well. BYU is currently the only U.S. school that offers both undergraduate and graduate CI courses, but that will soon change. Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa., has an undergraduate CI curriculum and is planning a master's program. CI curricula are also springing up at other schools, including Mount St. Mary's College and Wright State University. We'd tell you more about them, but if you really have a knack for CI, you can probably find it out yourself.

--Matthew Boyle

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