Inequality in online job searching in the age of social media

Karaoglu, Gökçe; Hargittai, Eszter; Nguyen, Minh Hao

doi:10.1080/1369118x.2021.1897150

Cited by 24 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…The payoffs of easier access to professional information and networks through platforms such as LinkedIn have the potential to be larger for those populations who otherwise face greater barriers to access these resources, such as women and ethnic or racial minority groups [7]. Existing evidence from the US points to a greater role for the informational and network benefits of internet and social media technologies for groups who are disadvantaged in the labour market [38,39]. Studies focusing on low-income countries find that digital technologies have larger impacts on women for outcomes linked to health, well-being and economic opportunity, as women conventionally face greater barriers in accessing information and have smaller social networks compared to men [40,41].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysing global professional gender gaps using LinkedIn advertising data

Kashyap

Verkroost

2021

EPJ Data Sci.

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Although women’s participation in tertiary education and the labour force has expanded over the past decades, women continue to be underrepresented in technical and managerial occupations. We analyse if gender inequalities also manifest themselves in online populations of professionals by leveraging audience estimates from LinkedIn’s advertisement platform to explore gender gaps among LinkedIn users across countries, ages, industries and seniorities. We further validate LinkedIn gender gaps against ground truth professional gender gap indicators derived from the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Statistical Database, and examine the feasibility and biases of predicting global professional gender gap indicators using gender gaps computed from LinkedIn’s online population. We find that women are significantly underrepresented relative to men on LinkedIn in countries in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, among older individuals, in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields and higher-level managerial positions. Furthermore, a simple, aggregate indicator of the female-to-male ratio of LinkedIn users, which we term the LinkedIn Gender Gap Index (GGI), shows strong positive correlations with ILO ground truth professional gender gaps. A parsimonious regression model using the LinkedIn GGI to predict ILO professional gender gaps enables us to expand country coverage of different ILO indicators, albeit with better performance for general professional gender gaps than managerial gender gaps. Nevertheless, predictions generated using the LinkedIn population show some distinctive biases. Notably, we find that in countries where there is greater gender inequality in internet access, LinkedIn data predict greater gender equality than the ground truth, indicating an overrepresentation of high status women online in these settings. Our work contributes to a growing literature seeking to harness the ‘data revolution’ for global sustainable development by evaluating the potential of a novel data source for filling gender data gaps and monitoring key indicators linked to women’s economic empowerment.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysing global professional gender gaps using LinkedIn advertising data

Kashyap

Verkroost

2021

EPJ Data Sci.

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“…This scoping review has also demonstrated a lack of criticality in this body of research. Although some studies in this review acknowledge critical concerns, none of them apply the depth of critical analysis that other, non-pedagogical research into LinkedIn has (Karaoglu et al, 2022;Staunton, 2020;van Dijck, 2013). LinkedIn is, above all else, a for-profit business which trades in individuals' data ("LinkedIn Business Highlights", 2022), seeks to influence their behaviour to its own advantage (Staunton, 2020;van Dijck, 2013) and potentially exposes users to a range of risks ("Professional Community Policies", 2022;"Staying Safe", 2022).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Whilst users do have some control over the content they write on their profile, LinkedIn exerts a normative influence which potentially makes authentic selfexpression difficult or risky (van Dijck, 2013). Second, some studies have questioned the efficacy of LinkedIn for job seeking (Johnson and Leo, 2020) or noted how online job seeking is influenced by digital inequalities related to demographic factors and digital literacy, with LinkedIn potentially biased towards wealthier, more educated professionals (Karaoglu et al, 2022). Finally, and most importantly, participation on LinkedIn may expose users to risks to their privacy and safety.…”

Section: Linkedin For Careers and Employability Learning And Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

LinkedIn as a pedagogical tool for careers and employability learning: a scoping review of the literature

Healy

Cochrane²,

Grant³

et al. 2023

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PurposeProfessional networks are conduits for career insight, vehicles for career exploration and incubators of professional identity. Accordingly, LinkedIn is a rich environment for university students' careers and employability learning. In this article, the authors review how the pedagogical use of LinkedIn has been conceived, implemented and evaluated in higher education research.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a scoping literature review on research articles and chapters investigating the use of LinkedIn for careers and employability learning. The authors conducted a systematic database search and screened the results, resulting in 30 eligible studies. Each study was analysed for research characteristics, theoretical foundations, reported affordances or outcomes and critical concerns.FindingsThe authors find little evidence of cohesion or consistency in the existing research. Studies draw on different theoretical and methodological approaches and use different measures of networking behaviours and competencies. Studies tend not to consider ethical concerns about using LinkedIn as a pedagogical tool.Practical implicationsThe authors argue this is not yet a body of research that supports the synthesis necessary for a reliable evidence base. The authors recommend that educators employing LinkedIn in the curriculum ground their work in more coherent, cohesive and integrated theories of careers and employability learning.Originality/valueThis review summarises a body of literature on the use of LinkedIn as a pedagogical tool for careers and employability learning in higher education. This review describes and critiques the beginnings of an evidence-base from which educators can further investigate how students can be supported to develop their online professional networking skills.

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“…The dependent variable was operationalized by asking (D1) whether the respondent had previously found a job in the service industry thanks to online social networks. Analogously, Karaoglu et al, for example, asked whether respondents had ever applied for a job online or responded to a job offer on online social networks (Karaoglu et al, 2021), or found a job through an online social network (Kajanova et al, 2017).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Social capital also determines how and what kind of job (Lancee, 2012) with what probability of success (Horvath & Zhang, 2022) would job-seekers find. Thus, building social capital is considered one of the most effective job search strategies (Karaoglu et al, 2021).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Capital and Job Search Behavior in the Services Industry: Online Social Networks Perspective

Rózsa

Minčič

Krajčík³

et al. 2022

JoTS

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Although job seeker social capital is considered a fundamental determinant of job-finding ability, it has yet to be discovered which activities contribute to its formation in the online social networking environment. Therefore, this study aims to reveal how job-seekers use online social networks, which job-searching activities increase their social capital and consequently contribute to finding a job in the services sector. The analyzed data were collected through an online questionnaire completed by 431 respondents. The resulting regression model identified two significant factors, namely the use of an online social network to directly contact a potential employer (p-value = 0.0017) and membership in Facebook professional groups in the area in which the respondent was looking for a job (p-value < 0.0001). The results confirmed that job-seekers who conduct both identified activities would have a 1.94 times bigger chance of finding a job. On the other hand, if they would not perform either of the activities, the probability of not finding a job would be 6.69 times higher. This study has several implications for human resource management theory and practice. First, it identifies job-seekers activities to find a job on online social networks and specifies the activities which lead to getting a job. Second, it enriches the Uses and Gratification theory by revealing that job-seekers prioritize the saturation of social needs over cognitive needs when searching for jobs on online social networking sites.

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Inequality in online job searching in the age of social media

Cited by 24 publications

References 52 publications

Analysing global professional gender gaps using LinkedIn advertising data

Analysing global professional gender gaps using LinkedIn advertising data

LinkedIn as a pedagogical tool for careers and employability learning: a scoping review of the literature

Social Capital and Job Search Behavior in the Services Industry: Online Social Networks Perspective

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