At a time when graduate employment is an increasingly driving force for students in the HE decision making process, online professional network LinkedIn (LI) has announced its first ever university rankings based on career outcomes across the USA, UK and Canada for specific programmes, generating some surprising results.
Employment patterns of over 300 million LinkedIn members were analysed across eight professional categories: accounting professionals; investment bankers; finance professionals; marketers; media professionals; designers; software developers and software developers at start-ups.
“We recognise that by helping students get this first step right, they will be more likely to make a smooth transition from campus to career”
“Today’s students are tomorrow’s professionals,” said LinkedIn’s director of product management Christina Allen in an official statement. “We recognise that by helping students get this first step right, they will be more likely to make a smooth transition from campus to career.”
Allen said the aim behind the new rankings and associated decision tools, was to help prospective students make “informed choices” on universities and programmes that may impact their future career.
Challenging existing preconceptions that an Ivy League school education delivers the best job prospects, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in the USA has outperformed the likes of Harvard, claiming first place for most software developers and designers in the country.
“CMU does well in the ranking because of our excellent academic offerings and because our alumni have already had success, so it’s an ongoing, self-reinforcing cycle over time,” Andrew Shaindlin, CMU’s associate vice president for Alumni Relations and Annual Giving told The PIE News.
CMU’s associate dean for career and professional development, Kevin Monahan, added that CMU alumni have been sharing the results with pride via their social networks, noting that the LinkedIn results have “provided an interesting twist to the ranking bonanza”.
In Canada, Neil Bearse from the Queen’s School of Business, which ranked first for investment bankers and marketers and second for finance professionals, commented: “LinkedIn’s data-mining is a novel approach to help paint a more representative picture.”
“LinkedIn’s data-mining is a novel approach to help paint a more representative picture”
“As the dominant ‘professional’ social network, LinkedIn probably has the most robust data set about graduate employment and the hiring practices of top firms,” he added.
“While their methodology may have its flaws such as vetting of accuracy of information within someone’s profile or graduates who don’t use LinkedIn, they are no more glaring than those in the traditional ranking criteria.”
The results for the UK are particularly interesting, reflecting recently published research by Prospect Research & Marketing showing that UK universities often provide a superior graduate careers service compared to markets like Australia.
The London School of Economics (LSE) won out in three categories: marketers, investment bankers and finance professionals.
“LSE alumni can be found in every corner of the labour market,” Jenny Blakesley, Director of LSE Careers told The PIE News.
“LSE Careers works hard to facilitate the transition from education to employment by providing an extensive range of opportunities for our students to engage with professionals whatever sector they aspire to work in,” she said.
Speaking at AIEC in Brisbane where LinkedIn was introducing the concept to Australians, LinkedIn’s account director, marketing solutions Michael Levine, said the company was “excited” about its first foray into university rankings.
However Levine noted that LinkedIn is also “treading very carefully” into the new space and does not want to jeopardise the quality of data that it has.
As well as analysing career patterns of its users, LI cross-referenced this data with information from its own education networks such as University Finder, Field of Study Explorer Decision Boards and recommendations on its University Pages.
Responding to a question about whether LinkedIn expected this to overtake other forms of HE ranking, Levine observed that while this did not represent “the silver bullet”, it would be the only place on the web that provides this kind of career outcome data. “It’s another means to help students in their decision making process.”
An Australian university delegate observed that the relevance of the rankings as an international tool would depend on LI’s uptake in key student markets such as China; Levine revealed high hopes for successful market penetration in China.
