LinkedIn Focuses on College Students and Recent College Grads with Career Explorer

LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network with more than 80 million members globally, today announced Career Explorer in collaboration with PwC US, one of the largest employers of college graduates in the United States. The new LinkedIn Career Explorer tool provides current college students with unique, data-driven insights to help them build their careers.

Career Explorer enables college students to chart potential career paths, build a professional network and gather valuable insights into the careers they are interested in pursuing. Career paths are easily mapped out for students, based on aggregate paths that LinkedIn’s 80 million members have taken before them. Additional resources for college students, such as relevant job opportunities, the type of education and experience required, and relevant salary information are also available via Career Explorer.

"PwC and LinkedIn share the goal of helping young professionals maximize career opportunities," said Bob Moritz, US chairman and senior partner, PwC. "Our collaboration has produced an innovative resource that engages people with PwC in a way that personalizes our brand while also helping them make more informed career decisions.

“LinkedIn is about connecting talent with opportunity at massive scale. Career Explorer is the latest example of how we make that possible by providing one of our fastest growing demographics, students and recent college graduates, unique and valuable insights enabling them to develop the optimal career path,” said Jeff Weiner, chief executive officer of LinkedIn. “We’re excited to be launching this product in partnership with PwC, one of the largest and most forward thinking recruiters of new graduates.”

Career Explorer is the first of many new products that leverage LinkedIn’s unique career data to provide useful insights for professionals.

Key functionality includes:

-Career Mapping: Explore the paths taken by professionals in various careers. Students can also save and create multiple career paths with Career Explorer.

-Connections: See who in your network can help advance your career within a certain field or company, and meet potential mentors.

-Statistics: Learn interesting facts and statistics about potential professions.

-Jobs: Career Explorer has a module that shows you not only relevant job openings, but also how you can use your network to secure or find more information about those positions.

-Follow Potential Employers: Career Explorer highlights the LinkedIn Company Profiles of potential employers. You can then “follow” those companies and receive updates about them in your news feed. The updates include job postings at the company as well as notifications when people get hired or leave the company.

Availability of Career Explorer:

Career Explorer is free and available immediately in a limited release beta for students at 60 universities across the United States that are sources of talent for PwC. Current students enrolled at those 60 schools will see a “Career Explorer” link under the “Jobs” menu at the top of the screen when they sign in to LinkedIn. The availability of Career Explorer will be expanded to a broader LinkedIn membership over time.

LinkedIn and PwC will be showcasing Career Explorer to students during on-campus events across the United States, starting today with a launch event at New York University's Wasserman Center for Career Development. Additional on-campus events will take place at Boston College, Brigham Young University, the Ohio State University, the Pennsylvania State University, Syracuse University, the University of Florida, the University of Illinois, the University of Maryland, the University of Southern California and the University of Washington.