My LinkedIn Direct Connections Analysis

I deliver as promised - here is a snapshot of countries and industries of my first degree LinkedIn connections.

I took the first 100 of them for this little research. They are presented in the alphabetical order on my LinkedIn contact page, so sorry guys with the names at the end of the alphabet - you are not included ;-(

My LinkedIn direct connections are located in the following countries:

62% - USA
9% - Canada
9% - Western Europe
7% - UK
4% - Asia
3% - India
3% - Middle East
2% - Eastern Europe
1% - South America

It looks like LinkedIn is quite international, but about 70% North American and about 20% European, with the rest of the world accounting for about 10%.

My direct LinkedIn connections represent the following industries:

30% - IT, Computers, Internet
16% - Staffing, Recruiting, Human Resources
9% - Finance, Accounting, Banking
9% - Education, Training, Coaching
9% - Management Consulting, Industries Consulting
7% - Marketing, Advertizing
6% - Publishing, Writing/Editing, Translations
4% - PR, Communications
3% - Pharmaceuticals
3% - Real Estate
1% - Legal Services
1% - Government Administration
1% - Retail
1% - Health, Wellness, Fitness

It looks like IT specialists are dominating here, and Recruiters who search for them, are the second largest LinkedIn group.

I would like to add that there is a current problem with LinkedIn definition of industries. Members are allowed to choose just one industry they think they belong to, but many of us belong to two or more at the same time. For example, a person lists herself in "Pharmaceuticals", but at the same time she is actually doing marketing of the pharmaceutical products, but cannot list herself in "Marketing" too. Or he lists as "Banking" doing recruiting for banking industry in reality, but there is no possibility to add "Recruiting", etc. It would be nice to have this freedom of showing all our skills in various industries to be available for potential searches instead of being limited to just one industry.

As for one, I would like to list myself in "Research", "Internet Marketing" and "Translation", but right now I have no such option. There is a rumor that LinkedIn guys are working on this issue. Hopefully, they will get it straight some time soon.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/olgakellen