AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE EFFECT OF LINKEDIN PERSONAL BRANDING ON CAREER VISIBILITY AND PERCEIVED EMPLOYABILITY OF MBA STUDENTS

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the extent of evident career benefits of LinkedIn personal branding to MBA students with regard to recruiter visibility and perceived employability. The reason why this topic is important is because LinkedIn has evolved from a simple online resume site to a space for students to create and present their professional identity.

The primary data was collected through a structured questionnaire from the MBA students and analysed through JASP. The analysis consisted of descriptive statistics, reliability testing, Pearson correlation and simple linear regression. The results overall indicate that LinkedIn is useful, but has more of an impact on students’ perceptions of their career readiness than their visibility to recruiters.

The findings of the descriptive analysis indicate that personal branding on LinkedIn has a mean of 3.670, career visibility has a mean of 3.330, and perceived employability has a mean of 3.272. These scores suggest moderate engagement and that students see the value of LinkedIn but activity on this platform has not yet translated into high visibility or high confidence.

The reliability analysis indicated that Cronbach’s alpha for all the three scales was greater than 0.70, suggesting acceptable internal consistency. This indicates that the questionnaire items were valid measures of the constructs.

There were significant correlations. LinkedIn personal branding had a positive but weak correlation with career visibility and the relationship was not statistically significant. In the end, a good profile doesn’t mean you will get noticed by recruiters. Visibility is also a function of networking, posting activity, engagement, and regular platform usage.

Conversely, LinkedIn personal branding was positively and significantly associated with perceived employability. Students who put more effort into building their professional presence on LinkedIn also tended to report feeling more confident about their career preparedness. External recognition often increases self-confidence as career visibility 6 and perceived employability were also highly correlated.

Regression results also supported the same pattern. Personal branding on LinkedIn explained only a small part of the variation in career visibility, but a larger and significant part of the variation in perceived employability. The findings suggest that LinkedIn branding is more effective in influencing students’ perceptions of their own career readiness than in directly generating recruiter visibility.

Overall, the study indicates that LinkedIn is significant for MBA students, but its importance is conditional on how it is used. Students who use LinkedIn as a constant professional tool are more likely to feel prepared for the job market. Universities should provide LinkedIn optimisation and digital personal branding advice.