Ebb and flow

At LinkedIn, researchers are more interested in the ebb and flow of careers, Patil said.

And although LinkedIn has existed for only seven years, members list employment or school activities going back decades, revealing a broader picture of workplace and education trends over time.

"We've always thought of careers as having a certain slowness, but in these times of financial upheaval, there's an acceleration of what people shift in and out of," said Patil, 35. "It's not only unique, it's also objective. It's not based on a survey, it's based on the data."

Patil also said that if employers are noticing an increase in talent coming out of colleges now, they're right, because going back to school or staying longer is a major trend whenever an economic bubble bursts.

During the last downturn, many just took the time to "hide out," taking short-term classes or earning an advanced degree. "A lot of people entered doctorate programs," he said.

What's different this time that more people are becoming independent contractors. "We didn't see that same trend in the last downturn," he said. "We suspect it's due to the magnitude of this financial cataclysm."

Patil also sees geographic patterns.

"In the first 10 years of your career, you're more likely to change your job in the San Francisco Bay Area than you are on the East Coast," he said.

That's because the Bay Area has more startups, while the East Coast has financial centers and older companies where "you're probably not going to hop a lot," he said.

But even that's changing with younger generations of workers. "Twenty-five years ago, people clearly stayed at their positions much longer than they do today," he said.


'Ninjas' and 'gurus'

From 2002 to 2007, there was an increase in job titles using the word "ninja" to designate a position requiring a high level of skill. "Evangelist" and "guru" were other titles that rose during the same period, although guru has since dropped in popularity.

But in 2008, "industrial design" and "environmental artist" became the fastest-rising titles.

"These are the guys that designed the background scenery for Worlds of Warcraft and all those video games, because gaming was becoming so popular," Patil said.

Green-tech and clean-tech positions are also on the rise, and there "still is a fair number of people moving into health care," he said.

Patil, who in the past decade has changed careers three times, wants to use the information he's gathering to help people find jobs they love by giving them more insight into how others have done the same.

"What will really make a difference for me is for someone to be able to say, 'Aha, I didn't realize I was able to do that,' and go into that space and have a really productive experience."

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