What LinkedIn Data Reveals About Who
Will Help You Get Your Next Job
Why "weak
connections" are more valuable than people who know you well and the
mistakes we make in networking.
It's an old adage for a reason, most of the time it's true:
"it’s not what you know, it’s who you know." Referrals are usually
the best way to get a job.
But over and over again, studies and surveys
show us that "weak connections" are key to getting the job of your
dreams—not the strong ties that everyone places so much weight on.
That’s what LinkedIn’s data team found when they dug into member
behaviors in the six months before they switched jobs and uncovered that
first-degree connections—the people you’re directly connected with on LinkedIn,
like a former boss or coworker—only accounted for a small percentage of
referrals. Here’s what else the recent research found on strong vs. weak
connections:
·
People are more likely to be referred for jobs by their second
and third degree connections.
·
Men typically have larger professional networks than women, but
women’s connections appear to be higher quality when it comes to job-hopping.
·
Connections matter most in technology-related industries.
Data from LinkedIn’s research comes
from two sources, one of which was LinkedIn’s 2016 U.S. and Canada Talent
Trends Report, which surveyed 563 people in the U.S. and Canada who switched
jobs between February and March. Forty percent of (or two of every five) people
in the survey said that they were referred to their new employer by one of the
company’s employees. To determine how strong ties needed to be for job
referrals, LinkedIn dug in deeper and pulled data directly from 3 million U.S. member
profiles who job-hopped one to three times since 2014.
"Only about 11% to 12%,
roughly one out of eight or nine people had a first-degree connection to their
new company."
"When we started with the survey data, we inferred that these
referrals were first connections, people that you know directly," says Guy
Berger, LinkedIn’s in-house economist. "But when we looked at our data and
looked at who people knew six months before they switched jobs, only about 11%
to 12% (roughly one out of eight or nine people) had a first-degree connection
to their new company."
Unsurprisingly, the data concluded that as job-hoppers got closer
to their start date, they added more first-degree connections, which is likely
from interviews and active networking, says Berger. Still, only 18% had
first-degree connections one month before starting their new job, which means
that people are getting jobs through their second and third degree
connections—people who might know you through someone else, but probably don’t
have an intimate knowledge of working directly with you.
So, how do we make sense of the strength in our weak ties,
especially when it comes to landing a job? Blame social media on the value of
weak ties as it’s now easier to be connected to "powerful" people
than ever before. These are people you may not have what’s deemed a quality
relationship with, but you’re aware of components and changes in their lives.
In short, the more weak ties you have, the greater your social
power is, because we don’t have time to only have strong ties and according to
research, can’t just rely on our quality relationships.
Case in point is a paper published
earlier this year in the Journal of Labor Economics, which used anonymized,
aggregated data from U.S. Facebook users and found that over 90% of job-helping
friends on Facebook are considered weak ties.
It’s about casting a wider net and
realizing that community is just as important as the strong ties you have that
require a lot of time and energy to develop. This realization may point to why
men have larger professional networks than women do, as women typically prefer
to "connect" rather than network, says Judy Robinett, author of How to Be a Power
Connector. She told Fast Company that
most people go to networking events thinking only a handful of people can help
them, when the truth is they may meet someone who has a useful connection.
"During the pre-job hopping
phase, women are more targeted with who they’re networking with."
When LinkedIn’s team looked at members’ profiles six months before
they switched jobs and compared the data to the one month prior to their start
date, it found both men and women increased their first-degree connections.
But, women added first-degree connections at a slower rate compared to men
(7.5% growth compared to 8.1% growth) and when they did add connections, it
tended to be people at the company they’re jumping to, which means that their
"network is more conservative but also higher quality than men's,"
says Berger. In conclusion, "during the pre-job hopping phase, women are
more targeted with who they’re networking with."
LinkedIn points to weak connections’ larger networks and knowing
valuable information (i.e. rare job opportunities) that you and your closest
networks may not be aware of as to why they play a more instrumental role in
job-helping. But could there be other reasons that closer connections aren’t
more helpful?
In a 2012 working paper published in the Institute for Research on Labor and
Employment, Sandra Susan Smith from the University of California, Berkeley,
concluded from in-depth interviews with 146 blue-and white-collar workers that
strong ties don’t matter as much when it comes to landing a job for two
reasons.
The first, "the costs of making failed matches" mattered
more to them than "the benefits of initiating successful matches,"
meaning they’re too invested on what would happen to them if things didn’t work
out. Second, they know too much about their close connections’ flaws, whereas
weak ties can more easily rave about their referral’s positive attributes
without being aware of their foibles. Hence, they can make the referral with a
sound mind.
Nonetheless, whatever the reasons for the strength of the weak
ties, don’t assume that people who aren’t your first connections won’t help you
out. And never assume that you know who can help you land your next dream job.
VIVIAN GIANG
http://www.fastcompany.com/3060887/the-future-of-work/what-linkedin-data-reveals-about-who-will-help-you-get-your-next-job
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