Comments on: Finding a job: the power of the weak tie

By: Riscario Insider

Riscario Insider — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 06:55:31 +0000

LinkedIn “works” for business in the sense that I have good connections and meaningful recommendations. I’ve been contacted by strangers and old acquaintances. Some connections send messages through LinkedIn rather than email.

Most people are invisible when you type their names into a search engine. A LinkedIn profile (essentially an online resume) makes you visible. There may be similar sites but I haven’t explored or compared them.

Few invest the time to post a meaningful profile, a photo or even to customize their URL. That will affect results, as will restricting access to your profile. Here’s mine http://www.linkedin.com/in/promod. A post on the pros/cons of sites like LinkedIn would be interesting.

By: admin

admin — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 15:25:27 +0000

Riscario- does LinkedIn actually work for you? I hear very different things about it. Please share your thoughts. Thanks.

By: admin

admin — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 15:24:28 +0000

Thanks for the comment.

Patrick, if I understand you correctly, you premise your assumption that all people have relative the same # of leads. However, what I understand the study to say is that your close friends most likely have the same leads that you do given closely over-lapping circles which means their leads are leads given that a job seeker has already pursued or is pursuing them whereas mere acquaintance may have the same number of leads as close friends but, because they inhabit different circles, the leads are not leads that a job seeker would otherwise have.

By: Riscario Insider

Riscario Insider — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 04:03:14 +0000

I thought this post was about clothing, that wearing a “power tie” may no longer work well. That point is made in The Articulate Executive by Granville Toogood. I thought this post a confirmation!!!

Knowing more people in different fields helps in any environment. Connecting-to-others sites like LinkedIn for business and Facebook can help even the shy.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:01:59 +0000

I think you have reached the wrong conclusion based on a statistical fallacy. You say only one in six who got their job through an acquaintance saw that acquaintance “often”. But if one sixth of the average person’s acquaintances are seen “often”, then this means that any given acquaintance is equally likely to find you a job, regardless of how often you see them.

Your close friends are not “terrible at giving you job hunting leads”. You just have a lot fewer of them to give you leads in the first place.