This post hopefully should help with a nugget that I found helpful recently our current situation with unemployment. I have been reading the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and came across a good nugget. Malcolm Gladwell referenced a 1974 study that was titled Getting a Job. In the study out of all the people that were interviewed (over hundreds and hundreds all over the country) the results were :
-56% got their job through a personal connection
-18.8 % used formal means (i.e. headhunters, and adv.)
-20% applied directly
That is not the interesting part of the study ; because we have all heard it’s not what you know it’s who you know that makes all the difference. The researcher delved into the Personal Connection (56%) response to find out more information. The individuals who stated that they used personal connections they were mostly “weak ties”. Here was the breakdown of the numbers:
This was a powerful point to me because with the era of social networking and linkedin this is doable for anyone now. Here are some simple questions you can ask yourself to get to know the right people
- Who haven’t I talked to recently in my network that I usually don’t hang out with?
- Who do I know that works in a totally different industry than me that I have heard about but not talked to ?
Sorry for the long post but I wanted to make sure that this point got out there, so for all you jobseekers out there ….start messaging on LinkedIn, Facebook, Orkut, etc.
Short little video (under 1:30) to give you some ideas on networking : http://bit.ly/44x6cX
Until next time I will keep the chai brewing.
