This month’s Forbes cover story
calls attention to the contributions and growing need for liberal arts
majors in tech, an industry widely regarded for its engineering talent.
The author of the story,
George Anders,
wrote, “The more that audacious coders dream of changing the world, the
more they need to fill their companies with social alchemists who can
connect with customers—and make progress seem pleasant.”
With this in mind, we looked at LinkedIn data to understand the
prevalence of these “social alchemists” with liberal arts degrees
joining the tech workforce. We defined “liberal arts” as the humanities,
social sciences, natural/physical sciences, and theoretical math.
As our data shows, liberal arts grads are joining the tech workforce
more rapidly than technical grads. Between 2010 and 2013, the growth of
liberal arts majors entering the technology industry from undergrad
outpaced that of computer science and engineering majors by 10%.
Internet or software companies are especially popular—38% of all recent
liberal arts grads in tech currently work in this space.
Given these growing trends, we looked into the data and uncovered
three insights that can help liberal arts grads understand where their
expertise fits within the technology industry.
Liberal arts majors take on a wide range of roles
These days you find liberal arts grads all across the technology
industry. While sales and marketing still make up the majority of
liberal arts degree holders in tech, the
third most popular role for recent liberal arts grads is within software development.
These results reveal that the philosophy behind liberal arts, which
encourages diversity of skills and flexible critical thinking, transfers
to the workplace in various forms.
Pedigree matters out of college, but it won’t make or break your tech career
Where you went to college plays a part in whether your liberal arts degree lands you a job in tech.
On average, about 10% of all recent liberal arts grads go into tech
directly from undergrad; but for students graduating from the
top 20 schools in America—the average is 14%.
However, you don’t need to attend an Ivy League school to make your
liberal arts degree work for you in the long run. When we broke down the
percent of recent liberal arts grads
currently in tech by top 20,
top 100
(those not included in the top 20), and non-top 100 schools, we found
that the difference between each tier is about 1% or less.
Prior work experience gives you a better chance of making it in tech
Having full-time work experience gives liberal arts grads a better
shot of finding a tech job, irrespective of industry. An earlier
Economic Graph analysis shows that half of the
top 10 industries hiring outside of their industry are tech-related.
Compared to liberal arts majors directly from college, the average
percent of liberal arts grads going into tech after having just one
other job is already 4% higher. While we still see slight difference
with pedigree, the overall picture is brighter for all liberal arts
majors with experience.

In our modern work economy, people have more opportunities and
resources to get the job they want; what matters the most is what people
do to get those jobs. With LinkedIn you can
gain new skills,
search for and apply to jobs and
make new connections.
As we continue to build the
Economic Graph,
we will be keeping a close eye on education and job trends as they
signal the changing nature of careers. Knowing the connections between
our education and job opportunities can help us understand the choices
we make in our own careers.
Methodological Details: The results of this analysis represent
only LinkedIn data. As such, how members choose to use this site can
influence our results, as well as our accessibility to data. These
variances were not accounted for in the analysis.
When we refer to “recent grads”, we mean liberal arts majors that
graduated between 2010 and 2013 and do not have graduate degrees or
technical double majors. When considering schools, the top 20 schools
included the top 20 national universities from U.S. News as well as the top 20 liberal arts colleges. The top 100 schools included the other 80 national universities at the top, as well as the remainder of the top 50 liberal arts colleges.
All other schools were considered “non-top 100”. Majors considered
liberal arts were in the humanities, natural and physical sciences,
social sciences, and theoretical mathematics. Please note that because
we looked at all schools in the U.S., there will naturally be more
non-top 100 schools represented when we look at overall data, i.e. the
10% of all recent liberal arts grads going into tech is similar to the
10% of all recent liberal arts grads from a non-top 100 school that go
into tech.
The job type, i.e. salesperson, is dependent on how LinkedIn
categorizes the role. A “job” is also anything the member chooses to
include as a position on their profile. The members that make up this
data graduated between 2010 and 2013 from a U.S. school, and we assumed
June to be the graduation date of that year (unless otherwise noted).
Members without education data were excluded from the analysis.
Jobs considered tech included internet, computer software,
computer hardware, biotechnology, online media, e-learning, computer
games, consumer electronics, computer and network security, information
technology & services, nanotechnology, wireless, and medical
devices.
(Photo credit: Jared from the HBO series Silicon Valley. In it, he’s a
Vassar College grad with a B.A. in Economics and the Head of Business
Development at Pied Piper.)