2021 4th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Big Data
Application of Data Mining in Predicting College
Graduates Employment
Shouwu He
Campus of Nanning
Guilin University of Technology Guilin University of Technology
Nanning, China
2021 4th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Big Data (ICAIBD) | 978-1-6654-1515-6/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICAIBD51990.2021.9459039
heshou5@126.com 409057436@qq.com
Abstract—With the popularization and enrollment expansion
of higher education in China, the employment of college students
has been the focus of public attentions. In this study, taking the
graduates of Grade 2016 in Guilin University of Technology as
example, data mining techniques are applied in predicting
employment by using five influencing factors. Based on the
CART algorithm, the Gini indexes were calculated and decision
tree was constructed. Furthermore, the random forest algorithm
is used to improve accuracy rate of employment prediction. After
data collection, cleaning and conversion, 496 employment
records were obtained, 70% of them were taken as the training
samples. The constructed model was tested by the remaining
samples and the accuracy reaches 81%. Finally, the features
academic achievement and graduation qualification are
identified as the significant factors of students ’ employability.
The combination model of decision tree and random forest
provides a new method for employment forecasting, which is
feasible and adaptable to employment guidance of schools.
Keywords—data mining, employment prediction, decision tree
algorithm, CART, random forest
I. INTRODUCTION
Since the expansion of college enrollment from 1999, the
gross enrollment ratio of higher education in China has
witnessed a rapid rise. In this context, the number of college
graduates continues to expand and reaches 8.74 million in 2020
[1]. The graduates employment has gradually become the focus
both the whole society and academia. Therefore, applying data
mining technology to employment prediction and finding out
potential patterns can provide decision-making basis for
employment guidance and effectively promote graduates’
employability in school.
At present, many scholars have carried out the researches
of data mining technology on college employment. In the
studies [2,3], different classification algorithms offered by
WEKA, including logistic regression, the Naive Bayes and
decision tree etc., were performed in order to forecast
graduates employment. It is learned that the logistic regression
is the best classifier according to the experimental result.
Decision Trees was used by more authors to analyze and
predict the employability of university graduates. Liu et al.
integrated the basic information database, scores database and
employment information database of college graduates. The
ID3 decision tree algorithm was used to find out the main
*Corresponding author: Xiaoying Li (e-mail:409057436@qq.com)
978-0-7381-3170-2/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE
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Xiaoying Li* Jia Chen
Campus of Nanning Campus of Nanning
Guilin University of Technology
Nanning, China Nanning, China
8154649@qq.com
factors that affect the graduates' employment units [4]. Zhang
et al. established a classification decision tree based on C5.0
algorithm and explored the influencing factors of college
graduates' employment direction, such as their academic
performance, CET-4 and CET-6 scores, origin, major, failing
subjects, employment region and city [5]. Tang et al. collected
the employment information of college graduates of traditional
Chinese medicine, studied the influencing factors of
employment based on C4.5 algorithm, and further used random
forest algorithm to improve the accuracy of employment
forecast [6]. Yang extracted four attributes affecting
employment units, such as major, academic performance,
English competence and computer skills, and predicted the
employment trend of students based on C4.5 algorithm. The
accuracy rate of the classification model was up to 81% [7].
Zhou et al. analyzed the employment data of graduates based
on C4.5 algorithm, verified the accuracy of the model by cross
validation and realized the high precision and high
practicability prediction model [8].
Overall, the data mining methods have proven their utility
to study employability problems. According to the accuracy ,
we conclude that logistic regression, decision trees, random
forest algorithms are the best data mining techniques for
employment studies [9]. However, most of the researches
mainly focuses on the influencing factors of employment and
accurate predicition of employment trend. Most of them only
consider the factors, such as students' academic performance,
English competence and computer skills, while few researches
focus on the factors, such as students' family background and
part-time job in college associations. To a certain extent, these
factors affect the students' employment and prediction results.
This study aims to develop a data mining model of
predicting students’ employment and analyze factors
influencing graduates' job-hunting. The employment-related
information of graduates was collected, the CART decision
tree algorithm was used by five factors affecting employment
and the learning accuracy is further improved by random forest
algorithm. The employment prediction model constructed in
this paper provides a new method for employment guidance in
colleges.
II. METHODOLOGY
A. Decision Tree Algorithm
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 Decision tree is a classical method in machine learning. It is
often used to solve classification and prediction problems. The
general decision tree consists of one root node, a number of
internal and leaf nodes [10]. The internal node of a tree
corresponds to a feature and the sample set is divided into the
internal nodes according to feature attributes. Leaf nodes
indicate the class to be assigned to a sample. The path from
root node to leaf node corresponds to classification rules. The
decision tree algorithm mainly includes ID3, C4.5 and CART
algorithm.
B. CART Algorithm
The Classification And Regression Trees (CART) uses
Gini index as an impurity measure in building the decision tree.
Suppose there are K categories, p k is the proportion of the k
class samples in the current sample set D k  1,2,3,  , K  ,
the Gini value of data set D is:
K Output: random forest T
Gini ( D )  1  k 1
pk
2
In (1), the smaller the Gini value is, the lower the impurity
is, and the better the feature is.
For the sample set D , it is assumed that the discrete
attribute a has V possible values a 1 , a 2 ,  , a V  . If it is used to
divide the sample set, the splitting Gini index can be calculated
as follows.
V
Dv
Gini ( D, a )   D
Gini ( D v )
v 1
For the feature set A , the attribute a* minimizing the
value Gini ( D, a ) is selected as the optimal partition attribute,
namely a*  argamin
A
Gini D, a  .
The process of CART algorithm is as follows.
Input: data set D , feature set A  a1 , a 2 ,  , a m 
Output: decision tree T
Steps:
(1) For the data set D of current node, if the number of
sample sets is less than a certain threshold value or there is no
feature A   , the decision subtree is returned.
(2) Calculate the Gini (D ) of sample set D, and return to the
decision subtree if the Gini coefficient is less than the threshold
value.
(3) For the data set D, calculate the Gini ( D, a ) value of
each feature a a  A .
(4) Select the feature attribute a* that makes Gini ( D, a )
minimum, and establish the root node. According to the feature
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attributes a* , the data set is divided into two parts D1 and D2 .
The left and right nodes of current node are established.
(5) For the left and right child nodes, recursively call steps
1-4 to generate the decision tree.
C. Random Forest Algorithm
Random Forest is an ensemble, supervised machine
learning algorithm. Random forest uses decision tree as base
classifier. In essence, random forest is an improved decision
tree algorithm, by random selection of the samples and feature
attributes, each tree will not be over-fitting even if it is not
pruned. The process of random forest algorithm is as follows.
Input: data set D , the number of samples N , the total
number of features attributes M , the number of trees
contained in random forest L , the number of random
features of each decision tree mm  M 

Steps:
(1) For i  1,2,3,  , L :
a) Random sampling with replacement from data set D
and select n samples, namely bootstrap sampling, as the
training sample set of each tree.
b) In the construction of decision tree, m attributes are
randomly selected from the total feature set M . According to
the feature selection method (such as Gini index), the feature
indexes are calculated and the best split feature is selected.
 c) Follow step b) to split the node until it can no longer be
split, and return Tsubi .
(2) The L completely growing decision trees above are
combined into the random forest T and return T .
(3) For the samples in test set, after the decision of each
tree Tsubi , the voting or weighted average is adopted as the final
prediction value.
III. EXPERIMENT
This study aims to find a classification model of students
employment and better forecast whether the graduates can find
jobs. Fig. 1 explains the research procedures, including data
collection, data preprocessing, model construction and model
evaluation.
Fig. 1. Research procedures.
A. Data Collection
This study integrated graduates information of Grade 2016
at the Department of Computer Application in Guilin
University of Technology, including the basic information,
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academic performance and employment data etc. Five main TABLE II. TRAINING DATA SET
factors are extracted, including academic achievement,
Employment
scholarship, graduation qualification, family status (whether Feature
poor or not) and association members. Attributes
0 1
A detailed description of each attribute is as follows. The 1 34 55
state of scholarship, whether the student was awarded a
scoreLevel 2 29 103
scholarship or not, is represented as “yes” or “no”. The
situation of obtaining graduation qualification is divided into 3 9 117
“yes” or “no”. In order to get access to graduation, the students 0 53 132
have to complete some required courses. If a student has many isScholar
1 19 143
failed subjects, it is usually hard for him to graduates. The
0 20 23
family backgrounds mainly refers to whether poor or not. The isGQ
involvement of school associations or clubs is represented as 1 52 252
either “yes” or “no”. At last, the employment status is regarded 0 59 168
as a dichotomization-employment and unemployment, namely isPoor
1 13 107
“yes” or “no”.
0 65 229
B. Data Preprocessing isAM
1 7 46
The discretization method of academic performance in [11]
was adopted. Students' scores can be regarded as a random
variable X , and it obeys or approximately obeys the normal C. Establishing Decision Tree
distribution X ~ N  ,  2  , where  is the mean of X and 1) The Gini index of training set In training sets, 275
 is the standard deviation of X . According to the principle of students are employed and 72 are unemployed, so the Gini
mathematical statistics, the sample mean x and sample index of training data can be calculated.
variance s are the unbiased estimates of  and  , so  and   72  2  275  2 
 can be respectively replaced by x and s . According to the GiniD   1 -      0.329
  347   347  
characteristics of sample data, academic score are graded from  
A, B to C, A-level: X  x  0.43s , B-level: 2) Gini value of each feature attribute
x  0.43s  X  x  0.43s and C-level: X  x  0.43s a) scoreLevel Because the CART algorithm adopted
respectively. two branches, according to the value of scoreLevel, the
The data schema is shown in Table Ⅰ. Five features, namely datasets D are split into D 1 , D 2  and D 3  s and the Gini
academic achievement, scholarship, graduation qualification, value can be calculated.
family status and association members, are represented
  63  2  158  2 
respectively by scoreLevel, isScholar, isGQ, isPoor and isAM Gini D 1, 2   1 -      0.408
in abbreviated format.   221   221  
 
  9   117  
2 2

Gini D 3   1 -  
TABLE I. GRADUATE EMPLOYMENT DATA
   0.133
Feature   126   126  
Values Description  
Attributes
 126 221 
scoreLevel A,B and C academic achievement Gini D, scoreLevel    * 0.133  * 0.408  =0.308
 347 347 
isScholar yes, no whether be awarded a scholarship or not
b) isScholar
isGQ yes, no whether to get graduation qualification or not
  53  2  132  2 
Gini D 0   1 -      0.409
  185   185  
isPoor yes, no family status, whether poor or not
association members, students’ involvement  
isAM yes, no
in school associations or clubs
  19  2  143  2 
Employment yes, no types of graduate employment Gini D 1   1 -      0.207
  162   162  
 
In the experiment, records with incomplete information  185 162 
Gini D, isScholar    * 0.409  * 0.207  =0.315
were deleted and finally the total sample number is 496, 70%  347 347 
of that is training data and the remaining 30% is test data. For
data conversion, the attribute value "yes" is represented by 1, c) Others Similarly, we can calculate the Gini values of
while "no" is represented by 0. The score grades C, B and A other attributes.
are represented by 1, 2 and 3 respectively. The number of Gini D, isGQ  = 0.311,
training samples under different categories of different Gini D, isPoor  = 0.318,
attributes is shown in Table Ⅱ.

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 Gini D, isAM  = 0.326
From the above results, it can be seen that the Gini index of
"scoreLevel <= 2" is the smallest, so it is taken as the root node
of decision tree. In the experiment, Python language is used to
implement CART algorithm. In order to avoid over-fitting in
decision tree, pruning is usually carried out. The decision tree
by post-pruning is shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. Decision tree by post-pruning.
D. Generating Classification Rules
According to the decision tree in Fig. 2, we can extract
some prediction rules of employment.
a) If scoreLevel = 3 and isGQ = 1, then employment =
yes.
b) If scoreLevel = 3 and isGQ = 0, then employment =
difficulty.
c) If scoreLevel = 2 and isGQ = 1, then employment =
yes.
d) If scoreLevel = 1 and isGQ = 1 and isAM = 1, then
employment = yes.
e) If scoreLevel = 1 and isGQ = 1 and isAM = 0, then
employment = difficulty.
f)If scoreLevel < 3 and isGQ = 0 and isAM = 1, then
employment = yes.
g) If scoreLevel < 3 and isGQ = 0 and isAM = 0 and
isSchorlar = 1, then employment = yes.
h) If scoreLevel < 3 and isGQ = 0 and isAM = 0 and
isSchorlar = 0 and isPoor = 1, then employment = yes.
i)If scoreLevel < 3 and isGQ = 0 and isAM = 0 and
isSchorlar = 0 and isPoor = 0, then employment = difficulty.
E. Results and Analysis
According to the classification rules, it can be seen that the
important factors determining students’ employment are
scoreLevel and isGQ. If the students have good academic
performance, few failed subjects, and part-time work in
associations or get scholarships, they are more likely to find
employment. Students with medium academic record and not
many failing subjects can basically get jobs. However, students
with poor academic records are facing more difficulties in
finding job. It can be seen that students' professional ability is
very important for employment.
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In addition, for students with low marks, whether to
participate in associations becomes the main factor affecting
employment. At the same time, the needy students have higher
employment rate, because of the employment idea --" first job
to reduce the family burden” .
Based on the observations in experiment, It can be
concluded that improving professional skills and changing
students’ employment concepts is conducive to enhancing the
employability of college graduates.
IV. DISCUSSION
A. Model Evaluation
After the algorithm model is established, it needs to be
evaluated to judge the quality of the model [12]. Generally,
training set is used to build the model and test set is used to
evaluate the model. In the CART model in Fig. 2, the depth of
the tree is selected as 5, the correct rate is 77.18%. The depth
of decision tree is changed from 1 to 20, and the learning curve
of the decision tree is obtained in Fig. 3.
Fig. 3. The depth and accuracy of decision tree.
In Fig. 3, when the depth of decision tree is low, the
accuracy rate is higher. When the depth of the tree increases,
the model is not over-fit. The accuracy rate drops rapidly and
tends to be stable gradually. The accuracy rate fluctuates
between 77% and 79%. On the whole, the accuracy is not very
high.
Furthermore, we implement random forest algorithm on the
same data set, based on the scikit-learn module in Python. The
number of trees in random forest was adjusted from 0 to 50,
and the accuracy was obtained in Fig. 4. As can be seen from
Fig. 4, when the number of trees is small, the accuracy
fluctuates greatly. With the increase of the number of trees, the
classification accuracy is gradually stable. The accuracy
fluctuates between 80% and 81%. Compared with CART
model, the accuracy of random forest is higher and the
classification results are better.
Fig. 4. Learning curve of random forest.
 The main parameters to adjust when using random forest However, there are some problems that still need further
algorithm: n_estimators, criterion, max_depth, research. More employment data should be collected to
min_samples_split, min_samples_leaf, and so on. The increase sample sizes and improve the veracity of forecasting
optimization model by cross-validated is listed in Table Ⅲ, the results. More attributes affecting employment should be
accuracy finally reaches 81%. considered, such as students’ gender, major and social practice.
In addition, the types of employment should be divided in more
TABLE III. THE OPTIMIZATION RANDOM FOREST MODEL detail.
Parameters Values Description ACKNOWLEDGMENT
n_estimators 21 the number of trees in the forest This work was supported by Guangxi Education
Department Basic Research Ability Promotion Project for
criterion gini classification criteria, Gini or entropy
young and middle-aged teachers in universities in China, under
max_depth 5 maximum depth of tree No. 2019KY0270 and 2018KY0240.
the minimum number of samples required
min_samples_split 13
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