A LinkedIn Analysis of Career Paths of Information Systems Alumni

Abstract

Information harvested from the LinkedIn profiles for 175 graduates of an Information Systems program at a mid-sized comprehensive university in the southeastern USA are summarized in this investigation. The current investigation was undertaken to examine the extent to which LinkedIn profiles are able to provide a more realistic picture of entry-level jobs held by program alumni and subsequent career progress. Additionally, our results suggest that LinkedIn profiles can help answer questions such as: what jobs do IS graduates get, what does the career of an IS professional typically look like, and can IS graduates successfully transition from technical to managerial positions? Our findings also suggest that information in LinkedIn profiles can be used to assess the long-term outcomes of IS programs.

The Politics of Emotion

“…Individuals following the technical track may advance from an entry-level programming position through other technical positions of increasing responsibility, such as software engineer, but with little or no demands for managerial skills (Ang & Slaughter, 2004). Individuals on the managerial track will typically move from more technically oriented jobs into roles such as project manager or others in which greater emphasis is given to managerial abilities which may include political skill (Ang & Slaughter, 2004;Case, et al, 2013). We can reasonably speculate that employees pursuing a managerially oriented career path will do so because they feel their inherent skill set will help them to succeed in such positions.…”

“…These characteristics are incompatible with high levels of innate political skill. In the IT/IS profession, managerial jobs are typically achieved in the mid to late career stages (Case, Gardiner, Rutner, & Dyer, 2013). We can speculate that those IT/IS professionals interested in attaining managerial positions will seek opportunities to develop their political skill as they progress through their careers.…”

“…However, their on-the-job interpersonal contacts are most often with other IT/IS professionals rather than with system users (Weinberg, 1998). Programming is often an entry level job for IT/IS professionals (Igbaria, Parasuraman, & Badawy, 1994;Case, et al, 2013) and typically entails relatively little interaction with users (Lee, Yen, Koh, & Havelka, 2001;Lee & Wingreen, 2010). This is evidenced by the ease with which programming jobs are outsourced to third party vendors (Enticknap, 2006).…”

A study of the online profile of enterprise users in professional social networks

“…During the last years, researchers studied a variety of social network communities in order to gain a more intimate understanding of the dynamics of online users. For instance [5] focused on the analysis of LinkedIn profiles for the purpose of studying the career evolution of the alumni of a south-eastern US university after graduation. [7] investigates if the hierarchy of an organisation can be inferred from social networks.…”

Using ICT to Support Alumni Data Collection in Higher Education / Upotreba IKT s ciljem pružanja potpore prikupljanju podataka o bivšim studentima u visokom obrazovanju

“…Some institutions use contact information from alumni databases or university career services for sending surveys to participants. When this information is out-of-date, or where alumni databases and career services do not exist, various methods are used for collecting alumni contact information, ranging from manual search for names on search engines (Daniel, Brooks, & Waterbor, 2011), to harvesting LinkedIn alumni profiles (Case, Gardiner, Rutner, & Dyer, 2011). Based on the surveyed literature, major problems in data collection are related to efficiency and effectiveness, especially in getting accurate alumni contact and employment information.…”