ERIC Number: EJ993712
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Jun-11
Pages: 0
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0009-5982
EISSN: N/A
Where Did Your Graduate Students End Up? LinkedIn Knows
Patton, Stacey
Chronicle of Higher Education, Jun 2012
Stakeholders want to know whether the graduates remained in the states where they got their professional science master's (PSM) degree, what their job titles were, and the type of employers they were working for. Business leaders, governors, and university-system heads want to know if graduates are contributing to job creation and work-force enhancement in their states. Those questions are being asked as graduate programs nationwide face growing pressures to be more open about completion and job placement. Few programs have the money or the staff to track and report data about their graduates' careers. Five years ago, using social media to track students was unimaginable. But now, almost one billion people use Facebook, a cyberpopulation that includes large proportions of undergraduates and graduate students and whose number would constitute the third-largest nation in the world. As students approach graduation and begin their careers, they also begin to participate in more online professional networks like LinkedIn, as companies increasingly use these sites to find employees. That means that growing numbers of graduate students have uploaded profiles with personal information that is publicly accessible. And that is information that university program directors and alumni offices can mine, analyze, and distribute.
Descriptors: Stakeholders, Graduates, Job Placement, Careers, Education Work Relationship, Graduate Students, Job Development, Social Networks, Computer Mediated Communication, Corporations, Employees, Profiles, Information Sources, College Administration
Chronicle of Higher Education. 1255 23rd Street NW Suite 700, Washington, DC 20037. Tel: 800-728-2803; Tel: 202-466-1000; Fax: 202-452-1033; e-mail: circulation@chronicle.com; Web site: http://chronicle.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A