Looking for participants for online survey on professional networking

[Lea Baumann]

Dear all,

I am Lea Baumann and I am currently researching (online) networking on professional social media sites (such as LinkedIn). The survey is the first project step of my dissertation and it is supposed to give an overview of factors influencing networking behavior in order to specify future project steps. The main goal is to build a scientific basis for the improvement of contact recommender systems on professional social media sites.

Therefore I am looking for participants who are either employed full-time or part-time or who are currently looking for a job. However, only people who have entered their professional lives i.e. no students. Also, it would be great if you used an online business network since the study focusses on online networking.

The survey is completely anonymous and voluntary. It will take approximately 20 minutes. As a little thank you I give away Amazon vouchers worth 20€ for every 10th participant.

Here is the link: https://kmrc.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_b3ZXcgW4tM3VuLz


Thank you and best regards,
Lea Baumann

[vangogh]

I started to fill out the survey, but I don't ever network on sites like LinkedIn or similar and figured I wasn't a good participant for your survey. I thought I'd reply to your thread though, to keep it active so others will more likely find the survey. Good luck with your research.

[Harold Mansfield]

I started filling it out, but honestly it started getting a little too long. Longer than my attention span could handle as many of the questions seemed to be repetitive.

Volunteer Surveys need to be short. No more than 10-15 questions. Once people start going through 3-4 pages they start wondering how much longer and start mistrusting the exercise as some kind of phishing expedition. The more irritated and fatigued they are with the survey stars showing in the answers because now they just want to get it over with and stop answering as honestly as they could.

[Lea Baumann]

Hei,

Thanks for the feedback! Yes, I know the survey is a bit long. However when you do not put too much thought in it and just answer every question/statement right away, it will take "only" 20 minutes. Also, this is the best way to answer surveys, to just follow your first impulse.

The problem is that this survey is just the beginning of my research and therefore its aim is to identify the most important aspects of networking to specify future studies. That’s why it has so many questions. I am sorry about that.

But thanks to everyone who has already participated.


Best,
Lea

[Harold Mansfield]

Hei,

Thanks for the feedback! Yes, I know the survey is a bit long. However when you do not put too much thought in it and just answer every question/statement right away, it will take "only" 20 minutes. Also, this is the best way to answer surveys, to just follow your first impulse.

Asking people to concentrate on something online for 20 minutes is tough. Especially when there is no reward at the end. If you feel you have have to explain how to take the survey faster, the survey is too long.


The problem is that this survey is just the beginning of my research and therefore its aim is to identify the most important aspects of networking to specify future studies. That’s why it has so many questions. I am sorry about that.

But thanks to everyone who has already participated.


Best,
Lea

I get it but some of your questions are redundant and that makes me think you're not getting accurate answers in the first place. More questions doesn't always yield detailed results because your sample size is much smaller.

Also, you can go through some old threads on this forum and get a lot of info on which aspects of networking are important to people just based on the kinds of questions that people have asked over and over again over the years. You can probably do this using other forums, Linked In, and Google search by seeing what kinds of business and networking articles are written over and over again.

Lastly, I'm willing to bet other studies have already been done and their findings are public.

Since much of that is online, once you've determined the most important areas to focus on, your survey can be much shorter, easier to finish, and you can get specifics about the area you've determined to be most important.

Again, just trying to help.