James SpillaneBefore you started University, do you wish you knew what careers your major might lead to? Do you think knowing what potential jobs awaited you on the other side might have deterred you from getting that philosophy degree?
A new LinkedIn feature called the Field of Study Explorer hopes to bring that knowledge to high school students in advance, helping them decide on their university, program and focus. The feature allows young students to explore various fields of study, see what schools put out the most grads in those fields, and where those grads end up.
So if I did want to see what a B.A. in philosophy could get me (the first social media philosopher?), I’d use the Field of Study Explorer to search the nearly 400,000 philosophy grads with a LinkedIn profile. Doing so shows that that IBM employs an impressive 600 graduates of philosophy, and Microsoft and Google each employ over 450. Clearly you can get a fantastic job with a philosophy degree, especially if you’re interested in computers and technology. Take that mom!
The Field of Study explorer also takes things one step further, allowing you to select any of the major employers for a certain field and see what kind of positions these grads hold within that company. In other words, I can see that philosophy majors have become senior marketing managers, technical support leads, events and program managers and client advisors for IBM, among other positions. A prospective student would also be able to see what skills they have, and strive to hone those same skills during their education.
In addition to being a valuable tool for students, this new feature is a great way for LinkedIn to connect with a younger audience that might not have much interest in the professional social network. It gives them a reason to create a profile early, which may provide employers using the social network with a younger talent pool to explore.
The Field of Study Explorer is also a fantastic example of the huge volume of data LinkedIn has at its disposal regarding jobs and education. LinkedIn profiles literally chart the course of individuals from high school through retirement, data that can provide a lot of insight to education institutions, businesses, governments, researchers and—as in this case— individuals.
This article was written for Business 2 Community by James Spillane.
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You do know that this feature only lists people WITH jobs, right? It’s quite possible that people with philosophy degrees are much less likely, on the whole, to get a job compared to IT or engineering majors. This article is complete crap. Learn your statistics.
A phil grad could also poke many holes in this story and explain why it is so misleading.
To Eugene: The author obviously DID learn his statistics. My father taught statistics (graduate level) and what I learned from him was that statistics aren’t based on the ENTIRETY of the information (as you are suggesting he do), only on the information that they find “relevant” to the study. In this case, it was not important to know how many philosophy majors are unemployed, only to know how many are and in what field. Please review YOUR statistics, my friend.