LinkedIn, the popular business-oriented social networking platform, has released maps of the United States and Europe, which depict the professional skill sets of their city-dwellers.
The site published two maps on Oct. 22, which provides insight into the city populations' skill sets, as well as a glimpse into the abilities unique to certain cities. The points are based on the locations and skills that LinkedIn users had listed on their profiles.
"Over 175 million LinkedIn members are located in the United States and Europe, and by mining the skills and location data in their profiles, we built two maps that highlight the skills which define almost every major city in each region," revealed LinkedIn's Sohan Murthy on the company's blog.
The underlying philosophy of the LinkedIn mapping is that cities are invariably seen as a haven for job opportunities. Murthy believes that not only are cities the hubs of diversity when it comes to cuisine and culture, but also when it comes to drawing workers who often have similar and dissimilar skill sets.
Often, an employee who is considering a shift to another city will analyze the "professional attributes" of the city in connection with the company he or she is opting for. To illustrate, a software professional would see more growth and increasing opportunities in the Silicon Valley than anywhere else in the U.S. since it is the undoubted hub.
A study of the U.S. map from LinkedIn gave some interesting results, with several cities fitting in with their stereotypical notions. The tabulated data reveals that individuals in Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota are rich in skills that are prized by the petroleum industry. This is also reflective of the fact that geology of the area has an impact on socio-economics.
The findings also show that New York City is teeming with finance experts. By contrast, Miami had people who specialized in travel.
The European map showed that people in London were multi-talented; entertainment, finance and business skills were competing for the top honors. Fashion skills ranked the highest in Milan, Italy. Several European cities were competent in tech skills, with Poland having the highest variety in the field.
