Title of the research:

Linking Youth to LinkedIn In The Pandemic?

ABSTRACT

My research study is concerned with the positive impact of the social media application,
LinkedIn, on the youth working population of India during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Through my research, I would like to analyse the usage of LinkedIn compared to other social
media applications. I will start with a survey questionnaire administered through Google
Forms. The questionnaire form will ask various questions on the topic at hand, such as social
media hour, preference of social media applications, and how the COVID-19 lockdown
impacted social media usage. After that, I will prepare a descriptive statistical interpretation
through pie charts and bar graphs. Though there are many research done on this field but still
its impact on the working youth population is not clear. Many kinds of research prove that
youth prefer using social media platform like Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook over
LinkedIn as they seem to be more user friendly. Many research fails to explain the reason
why youth are more active on other social media platforms. In this research I will try to find a
solid relationship between the region of the participant and gender of the participant with
hours of LinkedIn used in a week during the pandemic. We can perform a multiple regression
model to find out the relation between region of origin, gender of participant and hours of
LinkedIn. In this research I will try to describe that why LinkedIn is important for college
students and why they must consider creating an account in LinkedIn.

INTRODUCTION

The covid- 19 pandemic brought wreaking havoc on the lives of millions, creating
devastating impact on children and their families. Many people lost their job during these
tough times of covid. The pandemic has resulted in job loss in every industry. Employees
have been laid off or faced significant pay cuts in a majority of incidents. According to an
article of India Today “An estimated 12.2 crore people have lost their jobs due to the Covid-
19 pandemic” (Nair, 2020).

“In times of distress, LinkedIn has evolved from being a networking and hiring platform to an
online place where those who have lost jobs seek a dose of hope and make desperate appeals
for help”. (Das, 2020) LinkedIn networking is growing with a great pace. LinkedIn is the
world's largest professional networking platform. LinkedIn allows you to highlight your
profile, recommendations, expertise and connections. Your profile not only serves as the first
professional impression of you when recruiters and employers use LinkedIn to search for
candidates, but it also demonstrates credibility in your industry and highlights your
achievements. Many people continue to underestimate the value of LinkedIn in their job search
and are hesitant to embrace social media. Members use the site to communicate with business
partners, clients, and coworkers. But it can also help you raise your profile, raise brand
awareness, and recruit the right people. “According to an analysis, the average number of
applications per job posted on LinkedIn has doubled from around 90 in January 2020 to 180 in
June 2020. With all things going virtual to slow the growth of the coronavirus pandemic, you
need to rely more on virtual platforms to deliver your personal brand at work. And when it
comes to showcasing your brand, connecting with others, and building professional
relationships, one of the most important platforms is LinkedIn” (Arruda, 2020). It also plays a
great role in the life of a college student. “College students can use LinkedIn to establish a
professional online presence, which is important for getting jobs, internships and volunteer
opportunities”. (Ngo, 2021) In these times of hardship, people understand the importance of
professional online presence. A LinkedIn account can help you launch your professional
reputation by allowing you to display your credentials, post academic updates, and interact
with industry experts and potential employers. “Many surveys revealed that LinkedIn is the
most rarely used social media application as it doesn’t seem “social” — it’s not where your
friends hang out, but LinkedIn has huge potential to shape the life of an individual. It’s never
too soon to start building a professional network” (Yavorski, 2021). Mostly, youth these days
prefer to use WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat etc. as they seem to be more social and user
friendly. “There’s a lot of confusion relating to LinkedIn. Some people see it as a social media
network, like Facebook, while others view it as a job board. Both assumptions are correct to a
certain extent but, unlike Facebook, LinkedIn is more geared towards professionals and unlike
most job boards, LinkedIn does more than just allow you to search for openings. In my opinion,
LinkedIn is an invaluable resource for students, here are the top five reasons why every student
should be on LinkedIn-
To build a strong network of professional contacts,To get job alerts,Let the companies find
you,Prepare for interviews,To prove your dedication” (Clark, 2021).
LinkedIn allows you to connect and network with professionals from all over the world. One
of the most valuable features LinkedIn provides to college students and job seekers is the ability
to view the pages of potential employers. LinkedIn also has a feature that allows you to get
other people to recommend you. In terms of LinkedIn engagement in India, there were
65,090,000 users active on LinkedIn in January of 2020. There were 81,400,000 users in
September 2021, representing an increase of 1,63,10,000 (1 crore, 63 lakh, ten thousand) since
the pandemic began. In January 2020, there were 1,90,00,000 users (1 crore 90 lakh) in the 18-
24 age group, accounting for 29.2 percent of all total users. In September 2021, there were
2,40,00,000 users (2 crore, forty lakh) in the 18-24 category, a 50,00,000 (50 lakh) increase.
From this data, we can reasonably conclude that there has been an increase in the number of
users of LinkedIn in the 18-24 age category. This would prove that students have been using
LinkedIn more frequently in the pandemic. However, our data needed a bit more depth and
primary research work to do justice to our topic.
In these times of Covid, which rendered a lot of people jobless and unemployed, LinkedIn
emerged as a boon by providing a platform where people can seek for jobs as per their
requirements and can look for a suitable work as per their potential and capabilities. A lot of
college students have already come up on this platform but most of our youth still needs
awareness about this platform as they still mostly prefer Whatsapp, Instagram and other such
more common social platforms than LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a powerful tool that can have a big
impact on your teenager’s professional success.

RESEARCH QUESTION-

• How many hours of social media do you use in a day?

• Do you know about the social media application LinkedIN?
• Do you have linked in account?
• What purpose do you use LinkedIn for?
• How many hours do you use LinkedIn in a week during the pandemics?
• Why is LinkedIn important for college students?
• Why is LinkedIn better than other social media Networks?
• Why is LinkedIn the least popular social media application among youth?
• Does Linkedin is affected by pandemics?
• Why student find LinkedIn less social?

METHODOLOGY

Before starting my primary research, I proceed with a review of related literature on the positive
impact of LinkedIn. After that, I will start off with a survey questionnaire, administered through
Google Forms. The questionnaire form contains a variety of questions pertaining to the topic,
such as social media hour, preference of social media applications and how the COVID-19
lockdown impacted social media usage. From that I will prepare a descriptive statistical
interpretation, through pie charts and bar graphs using the Microsoft Excel software. Once that
was completed, I will perform a multiple regression analysis using three variables: region of
origin, gender of participant and hours of LinkedIn. The regression performed using the
ANOVA with two qualitative variables method and the variables, region of origin and gender
of the participant were classified as dummy variables. This regression analysis will perform to
see whether the region of the participant and the gender of the participant had any strong
statistical relationship to back our findings in our descriptive analysis. From my primary
research, I expect to find a solid relationship between the region of the participant and gender
of the participant with hours of LinkedIn used in a week during the pandemic.

References
Arruda, W. (2020). Valuable LinkedIn Features To Use During The Coronavirus Pandemic. Forbes.

Clark, S. (2021). Five Reasons Why Every Student Should Be On LinkedIn. Top Universities.

Das, G. (2020). Stories of distress,hope on LinkedIn. Mint.

Nair, S. (2020). Around 12.2 crore people lost their jobs: How Covid-19 will change job prospects and
hiring in India. New Delhi: India Today .

Ngo, C. (2021). How to Use LinkedIn as a College Student. Best Colleges.

Yavorski, K. (2021). Why college students should use LinkedIn. CollegiateParent.