1. Alumni@IBS
Alumni from the International Business and Management School
of Hanze University of Applied Sciences
1990-2014
Jan Liefers
Kristina Hildebrand
Dec. 2014
2. Contents
Where did the alumni from IBS go to?.................................................................................................... 3
Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 3
Research question............................................................................................................................... 3
Data form the Hanze University.............................................................................................................. 7
Data from LinkedIn group members..................................................................................................... 10
Position.............................................................................................................................................. 11
Global dispersion............................................................................................................................... 15
Degree ............................................................................................................................................... 17
Conclusions............................................................................................................................................ 18
Recommendations ................................................................................................................................ 18
Table of Figures
Figure 1: Alumninet members from BW (17).......................................................................................................... 4
Figure 2: Alumninet members from IBMS (86) ...................................................................................................... 4
Another source is to be found in LinkedIn, currently the most widely used professional networking social
medium. The information to be found on LinkedIn is controlled by individuals and is therefore not standardised
but can be seen as a valid source on the current job description, since users have an personal interest in
accurate and up to date Figure 3: Alumni from BW (17)........................................................................................ 4
Figure 4 http://press.linkedin.com/about 23-10-2014.......................................................................................... 4
Figure 5: Total number of graduates per degree and program .............................................................................. 7
Figure 6: Total IBS alumni per year ......................................................................................................................... 8
Figure 7: Total number of IBS graduates per gender.............................................................................................. 8
Figure 8: Total number of Master alumni per year................................................................................................. 9
Figure 9: Total number Bachelor alumni per year .................................................................................................. 9
Figure 10: Alumni per year.................................................................................................................................... 10
Figure 11: Current Job category............................................................................................................................ 11
Figure 12: Current jobs IBMS alumni .................................................................................................................... 11
Figure 13: Only Bachelor degree from IBS ............................................................................................................ 12
Figure 14: Master degree from IBS ....................................................................................................................... 12
Figure 15: Master degree outside of IBS.............................................................................................................. 12
Figure 16: Number of job changes........................................................................................................................ 13
Figure 17: job changes per graduation cohort...................................................................................................... 13
Figure 18: Current country.................................................................................................................................... 15
Figure 19: : Countries per continent ..................................................................................................................... 15
Figure 20: Alumni on the global map.................................................................................................................... 16
Figure 21: Highest degree ..................................................................................................................................... 17
Figure 22: % of graduates with a Master .............................................................................................................. 17
Alumni@IBS 1990 - 2014 2
3. Where did the alumni from IBS go to?
Introduction
IBS Groningen was the first international and fully English taught school at the Hanze University of
Applied Sciences. It started in 1990 and in 1994 the first students graduated.
Now, 20 years after its first alumni set off to pursue a professional career it would be nice to see
what the careers of these alumni have been. Where are they, what are they doing? Are their
positions reflected in the curriculum? How international are their careers?
The immediate reason to do this research was the development of the three year program of IBS.
One of the design principles of the program is to connect to the current job market. Therefore a
research was needed.
The national platform also has undertaken an extensive research on employability. We were not
aware of this fact at the start of our research, but fortunately we have received some of the raw
data. The research on employability done by the national platform has been sent by email and asked
98 questions on personal and company background and the match of the study with regard to the
job market. Some 100 respondents from the IBS Hanze University of Groningen replied. Since the
research outcomes have not been published we cannot quote them.
Research question
Our main question is: what is the current job situation of the alumni from IBS Groningen?
Several sub question can be related to this.
• How many students graduated in the various years?
• What are the most popular jobs?
• Where do alumni work and what is the career path?
To investigate these and possible other questions reliable sources have to be found.
One source is the database of the Hanze University, comprising all students that ever graduated. This
can be seen as a valid source on all alumni. This database basically comprises names, dates, gender
and degree title. The data used was obtained the 22nd
of Oct. 2014 and comprises the data until 30th
of Sept 2014.
The Hanze university of Applied Sciences has set up alumninet.hanze where alumni can register. The
results indicate however this site is not very popular among alumni. The BW counts 17 and the IBMS
bachelor alumni shows 86 members (15th
of dec. 2014). The two Master degrees show 2 and 5
Alumni@IBS 1990 - 2014 3
4. members respectively. The information from the Alumninet site is limited to only the name and
location. (source: http://alumninet.hanze.nl/nl/opleidingen?school=348)
Another source is to be found in LinkedIn,
currently the most widely used professional
networking social medium. The information
to be found on LinkedIn is controlled by
individuals and is therefore not
standardised but can be seen as a valid
source on the current job description, since
users have an personal interest in accurate
and up to date information.
A more convenient source is to make use of
the group members International Business
School Groningen. This group has currently
well over 1100 members, of which some
are still a bachelor student or faculty, but as
a whole serves as a good representation of
the alumni. A bias might be expected with
regard to Asian students as can be
demonstrated by Figure 4, provided by
LinkedIn, although the fact that Asian
students who graduated from IBS or most
likely to have become acquainted with
social media like LinkedIn.
Figure 3 http://press.linkedin.com/about 23-10-2014
Figure 1: Alumninet members from BW (17) Figure 2: Alumninet members from IBMS (86)
Alumni@IBS 1990 - 2014 4
5. A research from Y. Song, 2012 (Network of networks: Uncovering the secrets of entrepreneurs'
networks) showed LinkedIn is a social medium that is positively connected to business success.
To find out who of all alumni from IBS would have a LinkedIn profile would take a serious investment
in time. Every individual name would have to be entered in the person search and checked if they are
IBS alumni. Since a rather large proportion of females tend to change their names after marriage this
would mean a very labour intensive process.
The two researchers have collected all data from people who are a member of the IBS Hanze group
“International Business School (IBS) – Groningen”. This group comprised of 11431
members. The
members were checked if they actually are an alumnus. The following data was gathered:
Surname; first name; current job description; current company; country of company; graduation date;
highest degree achieved; institution where the degree was acquired, number of jobs; contact
information.
The name and date were checked with the official Hanze UAS information.
The International Labour Organisation published a list2
(International Standard Classification of
Occupations ISCO–08) which offers a good reference for a category list.
Looking at the Managers, Professionals and Service and sales workers on this list a good 34 job
descriptions can be found that might be related to the work expected to be performed by IBS alumni.
By looking at the first few hundred of job descriptions on LinkedIn it became clear that the list is not
easily applicable. Below you see a selection that we thought could be relevant to the business job
market of the ILO list.
1120 Managing Directors and Chief Executives
1211 Finance Managers
1212 Human Resource Managers
1213 Policy and Planning Managers
1219 Business Services and Administration Managers Not Elsewhere Classified
1221 Sales and Marketing Managers
1222 Advertising and Public Relations Managers
1223 Research and Development Managers
1324 Supply, Distribution and Related Managers
1345 Education Managers
1346 Financial and Insurance Services Branch Managers
1420 Retail and Wholesale Trade Managers
2310 University and Higher Education Teachers
2411 Accountants
2412 Financial and Investment Advisers
2413 Financial Analysts
2421 Management and Organization Analysts
2422 Policy Administration Professionals
2423 Personnel and Careers Professionals
1
(accessed on 10-11-2014)
2
http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/
wcms_172572.pdf
Alumni@IBS 1990 - 2014 5
6. 2424 Training and Staff Development Professionals
2431 Advertising and Marketing Professionals
2432 Public Relations Professionals
3311 Securities and Finance Dealers and Brokers
3312 Credit and Loans Officers
3313 Accounting Associate Professionals
3314 Statistical, Mathematical and Related Associate Professionals
3315 Valuers and Loss Assessors
3321 Insurance Representatives
3322 Commercial Sales Representatives
3323 Buyers
3324 Trade Brokers
3332 Conference and Event Planners
3333 Employment Agents and Contractors
3341 Office Supervisors
Although this list might be a good start for classification the problem is that people don’t use this list
and there are many jobs that cross the lines and have components of more than one.
Alumni@IBS 1990 - 2014 6
7. Data form the Hanze University
The database of the Hanze shows a total of 3239 alumni that have graduated since the start of IBS in
1990 until September 2014. The numbers can be found in figure 5. In its history a variety of degrees
has been offered, both on the bachelor as well as the Master degree. 87,8 percent of the students
has a bachelor degree, 12,2 % a Master degree. 4 are counted double, that is have both a bachelor
and a Master degree from IBS Groningen.
Figure 4: Total number of graduates per degree and program
Over the years there have been various programs for the two degrees. Roughly since 2004 the
bachelor stops using the specialisation as a different degree, so no conclusions can be drawn as if
only a minority ever choose finance.
The first alumni graduated in 1994. As can be seen in Figure 6 the numbers show a slightly fluctuating
but rising tendency.
Alumni@IBS 1990 - 2014 7
8. Figure 5: Total IBS alumni per year
The number of female and male students has been rather balanced. Over all the percentage of males
is 48.5% and 51,5% is female. Per year there are variations though as can be seen in Figure 7.
Figure 6: Total number of IBS graduates per gender
IBS offers both bachelor and Master programmes. The first bachelors graduated in 1994, the first
Master students graduated in 1995. The Masters studies was a double degree cooperation with the
University of Strathclide, Glasgow, Scotland. The course was issued by HanzeConnect.
As for the Masters programs there are also some changes in time. The oldest is “International
Management, Master International Business” which has been used until 2001. Since 2007 the
common degree name is Master of Business Administration and Master in International Business and
Management. It clearly shows a period with the cooperation with Strathclide and one without.
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Alumni@IBS 1990 - 2014 8
9. Figure 7: Total number of Master alumni per year
In Figure 9 you can see the development of the number of all Bachelor alumni. By comparing the
overall alumni from Figure 6 with the Figures 8 and 9 it shows the two degrees somewhat balance
the overall rather steady development.
Figure 8: Total number Bachelor alumni per year
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Alumni@IBS 1990 - 2014 9
10. Data from LinkedIn group members
In the LinkedIn group (“International
Business School (IBS) - Groningen”) we
found 738 out of 2844 alumni which is 26%
of all bachelors. From all the 395 Master
students we found 63 which is 16%.
The graduates divided per year, (figure 10)
split per degree, shows a fair likeness with
the overall graduated students (Figure 9), so
it can be concluded that the group in
LinkedIn is a fair representation. To
interpret the graph of the Masters (Figure 8)
correctly one has to know the first Master
was organised by Hanze Connect, not as a
part of IBS as a school. Therefore these
alumni do not have a connection to IBS.
Figure 9: Alumni per year
We will discuss first their job position, then their degree and finally the country in which they work.
By counting the number of job mentions one gets an idea about the job mobility or career path. In
average all alumni had 3,5 different jobs.
Alumni@IBS 1990 - 2014 10
11. Position
Looking at all 801 alumni the following list shows the
distribution of their current position, also in a graph.
It is clear the most popular categories are Sales (97),
Marketing, (95), Finance (92) and Management (70).
With management the more general management is
meant. Account, project and product management are
treated as different categories.
The jobs categorised as marketing show a substantial
part deals with online marketing.
Another interesting find is the fact only 0,9% mentions
to be unemployed (or in between jobs or on parental
leave).
The majority of jobs, when looking at the job
descriptions shows a wide use of applied skills (project
management, monitoring tools, negotiation, online
marketing expertise etc.)
The job categories
displayed in a graph
shows clearly where the
major arrears can be
found, Skipping Tourism
as a specialisation
seems to have been a
wise decision.
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accountmanager
business(owner)
businessdevelopment
coaching&training
communication
consultancy
finance&accounting
humanresourceman.
lecturing
management
marketing
marketresearch
Productmanagement
projectmanagement
sales
study
supplychain…
other/unknown
tourism
unemployed
Figure 11: Current jobs IBMS alumni
Figure 10: Current Job category
Alumni@IBS 1990 - 2014 11
13. As Figures 13, 14 and 15 show the most mentioned jobs vary per degree. For IBS master students
the most popular job is business development and management. For the group who are in the
process of getting or got a Master elsewhere, that is other than the Hanze it is studying (for the most
recently graduated) and finance.
Figure 16 shows the number of job changes. The average is 3,5 per average career. More relevant is
to see how the number of job changes is influenced by the date of graduation the table below (Figure
17). It shows the bandwidth of changes widens over time.
0
50
100
150
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21
no. of jobs
Figure 15: Number of job changes
Figure 16: job changes per graduation cohort
Alumni@IBS 1990 - 2014 13
14. Another aspect that could be established is at what company do the current alumni work.
We will show the most mentioned ones with the number of employees from the IBS alumni.
Company No. Company No.
ABN AMRO 5 ING 7
Accenture 3 KPN 3
Aegon 4 PMCS GmbH & Co. KG 3
BearingPoint 3 Philips 5
Deloitte 4 Rabobank 6
Google 4 Randstad Professionals 3
Hanze University 5 Storm Marketing Consultants 3
Hellmann Worldwide Logistics 4 Unilever 3
Alumni@IBS 1990 - 2014 14
15. Global dispersion
The last issue is where the current jobs are located, or where do our alumni work. Figure 18 holds the
numbers.
Figure 17: Current country
The alumni state in general where they are currently working although in 35 of the cases this was
unclear. In all 766 other cases we could find 63 different countries being mentioned covering all
continents. In fact even a former exchange student reported working on Antarctica but exchange
students were not counted as IBS alumni. As you can see in Figure 19 they can be found in all
continents. By looking at the individual alumni it shows that not all that work in the Netherlands are
of (originally) of Dutch nationality. Although we have not calculated this, the spread of alumni
working international is greater than shown.
Figure 18: Countries per continent
Alumni@IBS 1990 - 2014 15
16. When we present the same findings but now on a map it shows a nice dispersion over the globe.
Figure 19: Alumni on the global map
Alumni@IBS 1990 - 2014 16
17. Degree
Of all alumni in the IBS LinkedIn group 63 graduated with a Master
degree from IBS. In total 239 eventually got a Master or PhD
degree at another university bringing the total of alumni on
Master or PhD degrees at 301 (see Figure 21). Figure 22 shows
there is not a clear relation between the year of graduation from
the bachelor and the tendency to continue with a Master. When
you correct the data for the cohorts with the smallest number of
alumni (2006 and before 1995) a rising tendency can be seen.
Figure 21: % of graduates with a Master
In total 100 different Master courses were mentioned. The 10 most mentioned universities can be
found below, where it strikes that Lund, Sweden, is an increasingly popular destiny for recent
students.
No. Master
63 Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen; MBA
44 Rijksuniversiteit Groningen / University of Groningen
12 Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University
12 Lund University; M.Sc.
7 Nyenrode Business Universiteit
6 Anglia Ruskin University MA Business Administration
5 Sheffield Hallam University; Masters Degree, International Business
4 UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School Dublin
4 University of Amsterdam, MSc
4 Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, MSc
Figure 20: Most mentioned Masters
0,0%
10,0%
20,0%
30,0%
40,0%
50,0%
60,0%
70,0%
1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014
% of graduates doing Master
Figure 20: Highest degree
Alumni@IBS 1990 - 2014 17
18. Conclusions
• The curriculum reflects most of the jobs offered , apart from Sales.
• Sales is serious business.
• In the majority of jobs applied skills are required (management, negotiation,
• The alumni from IBS work globally. (Hidden behind a single number is in fact an even more
international picture to be found: )
• Unemployment for IBS Alumni is low (<1 %)
Recommendations
• The international character of the alumni is an USP that deserves to be exploited more.
• Make use of the list of alumni to get into contact with alumni (guest speaker, stepping stone)
• Make use of the group for more two way communication about the Bachelor and Master
program and the connection of the program to the profession
• Sales deserves more attention in the curriculum
Alumni@IBS 1990 - 2014 18
