What are viable career path patterns in terms of entry-level jobs, subsequent career path progress, and career path movement for recent Ted Rogers School of Retail Management graduates?

Project Background:

1) Develop your personal LinkedIn Profile as per “all star” status

2) This project provides an opportunity to leverage the data contained within LinkedIn to design and develop your personal career path and strategy. This is a research project, therefore, it will require you to: collect data (select 10 publicly available LinkedIn profiles); analyze data using quantitative techniques; produce findings and insights; and report, visually present (via graphs and charts within the report) and discuss your results.

Research Question: What are viable career path patterns in terms of entry-level jobs, subsequent career path progress, and career path movement for recent Ted Rogers School of Retail Management graduates?

Sample
• Select a purposive sample of 10 publicly available LinkedIn profiles of retail professionals. The profiles should meet 3 criteria: 1) they should detail the professionals’ career positions from their first job; 2) the professionals’ careers should include a Canadian university business degree; and 3) they should represent professionals’ whose career paths you admire.

Findings & Insights
• What evidence did you find about (for example):
– Demographic characteristics
– Types of sectors
– Formal educational background
– Training and development
– Job titles
– Number/tenure of appointments
– Lateral/vertical shifts within sector – Across sectors
– Types of Careers – i.e. Organizational (i.e. stable employment with one employer) and Occupational (i.e. mobility between companies)
– Geographic mobility
– Informal/formal networking (i.e. Number of connections, membership in associations…)
– Other categories (e.g. Languages spoken, interests, volunteer work, groups…)

Analysis.
• Analyze the relationships between the characteristics of the career paths and movements evident in the sample.
• Consider patterns in timing (i.e. after 5, 10, 15 years), sectors, cause and effects of employment changes (i.e. related to organizational or sectorial changes, changes in personal KSAs, networks, etc.)
• The analysis MUST utilize tables and charts to visually display your key findings and insights.

Discussion and Conclusions
• What did your results tell you about the retail professionals and their careers?
• What unique or unexpected insights did you uncover about this career path?
• How do your results compare/contrast with what you’ve experienced in your internship/learned in the TRSRM program?
• What are the limitations of your research/analysis?
• What are the implications of your research for your personal career?

Format
• Approximately 2000 words (not including Appendices).
• Must use the sub-titles provided.
• Word or PDF document, 12 point font, double spaced, 1-inch margins.
• Must include title page, table of contents, appendices, list of references and page numbers.
• Must use professional business writing in an essay style including introduction and conclusion.
• Checked for spelling and grammar errors, proofread and self-edited.
• Due Date: Soft copy (via Turnitin Drop box in D2L) and hard copy (in class) due at beginning of class in week 10