INSTRUMENTS FOR PROFESSIONAL SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS

The popularity of social networks has known great expansion in different domains, including business environment, thus having a significant impact on traditional recruitment process, peer connections and overall opportunities. The purpose of this research is to review comparatively instruments and tools which offer the means for advanced and qualified analysis of professional social networks. We first take into consideration various mathematical approaches for representing the structure of a network from which we focus on graph theory. Then we give a practical dimension to the paper by the use of multiple dedicated software products. The methodology follows two directions: one is based on choosing three relevant platforms for which we establish a set of criteria for performance and functionality tracking, while the other one involves a test case of two network visualization tools on a practice dataset. The obtained results are the subject of a critical, but personal interpretation and they can be considered for future research.