LinkedIn is mining its users' data to paint a picture of promotions among U.S. employees. For IT pros, promotions tend to come at the beginning of each quarter.
Social-networking Website LinkedIn, which focuses primarily
on business connections, has leveraged data from its 90 million users to reveal
some things of interest to pretty much every employee: promotions.
More specifically, LinkedIn's data reveals that the most
popular month for a promotion continues to be January-although that's changing.
During the 1990s, some 22 percent of promotions occurred that month. In the
past decade, however, that number has fallen to 16 percent-and more promotions
are apparently taking place throughout the balance of the year.
"The data confirms that January is indeed the most popular
month for promotions," Monica Rogati, LinkedIn's senior data scientist, wrote in a Jan. 26 posting on the network's
official blog. "However, we do see a surprising phenomenon: promotions are
starting to spread more throughout the year."
Rogati goes on to suggest that Millennials-i.e.,
professionals born in the 1980s and 1990s-could be responsible for a lot of
this evening-out of promotions throughout the calendar year. There are several
potential factors at work, including Millennials' potential
"overrepresentation" in industries with fast promotion tracks, and quicker
cycling among more junior positions.
Overall, though, more widespread timing in promotions means
potentially good things for workers in the United States, particularly those
working in certain industries.
"In the U.S., while January is the top month for promotions,
the spread throughout the year is more uniform than the global average," Rogati
wrote. "That's good news for U.S. professionals who have missed the January
wave, especially since more than 98 percent of U.S. companies plan to increase
base pay in 2011."
For tech workers, that spread of promotions tends to follow
a certain pattern, one the blog posting illustrates with a series of graphs.
"We've removed the peak month of January from these last
graphs to highlight the differences among industries," Rogati added.
"Information Technology companies follow a typical quarterly pattern, with
promotions concentrated at the beginning of each quarter."
According to a recent Glassdoor.com
"50 Best Places to Work" study, a number of tech companies rank high in
their employees' esteem. Intel, Salesforce.com, Google, and Facebook all placed
on Glassdoor.com's list, with Facebook landing at No. 1. Chances are-based
on the LinkedIn data-that at least some of these companies will be looking to
promote their people up the ladder come the beginning of next quarter.
Nicholas Kolakowski is a staff editor at eWEEK, covering Microsoft and other companies in the enterprise space, as well as evolving technology such as tablet PCs. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Playboy, WebMD, AARP the Magazine, AutoWeek, Washington City Paper, Trader Monthly, and Private Air. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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