Men are more savvy networkers.
That's what a new study by LinkedIn says. Though men are more adept networkers globally, the study also showed that men and women show networking strengths in different industries.
The site measured "networking savviness" by looking at the current industry, company and professional connections, and then measured the ratio of one-way connections men have to connections women have and the ratio of male members to female members.
"We label an industry as 'female savvy' when, for example, 45% of the industry is female and where women have 70% of the connections," it explained.
Men took the fields of law enforcement, capital markets, as well as medical practice and health care, and, in what may be a surprise, cosmetics. Women on the other hand, rule international trade, alternative medicine, alternative dispute resolution, in addition to tobacco and ranching.
Both genders are equally savvy when it comes to market research, media production, dairy, individual and family services and paper and forest products.
The study also looked at network skills on the company level. Walmart, Kaiser and Mary Kay show male dominance, whereas Best Buy, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon were more female savvy. Comcast was on example of a company that measured as neutral.
"There are several things relating to gender that could explain the results: seniority, job function, desire for the minority gender to connect with the majority gender (or stay close to the minority gender), etc," said the blog.
The study jibes with a recent Pew study that reported that women make up 56 percent of the users on social networking sites, but are the minority on LinkedIn, which is 63 percent male. Twitter, by contrast, is 64 percent women.
The Atlantic writes:
Given that LinkedIn is the only specifically business and career-oriented site on the list, are these numbers a reflection of the real world's male-dominanted hierarchies, slipping in to pixelated form? Or is it just that men are more into uploading resumes and feeling important on the Internet?
What do you think? Are men better networkers than women? Or are they just better at LinkedIn?