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“What a Small World!”

We’ve all heard some variation of “what a small world!” People say it when they’re surprised that this stranger is somehow their parent’s high school’s best friend’s daughter’s boyfriend (or something of that nature). However, people around you say this phrase so many times that I bet you often wonder if there was ever a time the world wasn’t so small. That’s because the social network is in fact a “small world.” More exactly, the Six Degrees of Separation Phenomenon says that any two people in the world is somehow connected to each other through at most six people. This seems a bit crazy at first. How could we reach every single person in this world with just six contacts? To provide a more tangible example, how is it possible that you somehow could reach out to both the President of the United States and the young girl suffering in North Korea? It seems impossible, but social networks have been proving otherwise, especially LinkedIn.

Although LinkedIn narrows down the population to the working force in the United States, you’ll quickly notice that somehow, you are connected to almost everyone. Your connection starts with just your college friends. Then your intern friends. Then your managers. Then your recruiters. Next thing you know, you’re stalking the director of your dream company X on LinkedIn, and you’re only 3 connections removed from him/her! How could this be??? Do you now have a better shot at landing a job at this company? Unfortunately not. There’s an extremely high chance that almost every intern with a similar-size network is connected to the director as well. In other words, your chances of being recruited isn’t much higher because you’re 3 connections away from the director.

However, what is fascinating is that recruiters at companies are being recognized for their number of connections to interns just like you and me. If a company notices that candidate A for a recruiting position is basically 6 or fewer connections away with more people on LinkedIn than candidate B for the same position, they will pick candidate A. In other words, it’s great if you can detect good candidates and sell a job quickly and effectively, but if you don’t have a really well-connected network on LinkedIn, you’re a bit out of luck. However, I personally find a flaw in this “qualification.” If every person is somehow connected to every other person in the world, how is it possible that candidate A can reach more people than candidate B? Don’t both candidates reach every other people (including each other) in some way? To me, this “qualification” seems a bit off. In conclusion, the beauty of the Six Degrees of Separation Phenomenon is that it can be applied to everyone universally. To say one person has “more” Six Degrees of Separation Phenomenon over another person contradicts the very nature of this phenomenon.

 

Source: http://www.phaidoninternational.com/in-the-media/latest-news/posts/2014/small-world-phenomenon-recruiting-an-innovative-approach/

 

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