Social Media and its Effect on the Job Search
Article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ricksmith/2014/10/20/the-linkedin-effect-why-social-media-is-now-mandatory-for-success/#50254a201c1b
Since the invention of the internet, we have become increasingly dependent on technology to help us navigate our daily lives. If we have a question, we can use a search engine to answer it in mere seconds. If we need to get somewhere we have never been before, we can use a GPS, as opposed to a map, to get us there. And if we are looking for a job, we can reap the benefits of our nearly unlimited access to social media. In his 2014 article, “The LinkedIn Effect: Why Social Media is Now Mandatory for Success,” Rick Smith alleges that, in order to get a good job, we need to take advantage of contacts on social media websites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. According to Smith, our weak ties, those to whom we are not necessarily close but are friendly with, are our greatest advantage in the job search.
Social media has drastically changed how we manage our personal lives. Whereas before the internet, people had to cultivate relationships in person and keep them up through fairly frequent contact, we can now socialize with people instantly through the click of a button. As expected, this exponentially increases the number of people that we have the ability to share connections with. In his article, Smith states that, in recent years, success in a field depends ultimately on “professional weak ties” (Smith). But as it turns out, the theory of weak ties being more helpful in the job search than strong ties is not new. Even in the 1970s, a good two decades before even the most basic website was invented, sociologist Mark Granovetter conducted a study and came to the same conclusion. This is a direct result of the fact that we typically have too much in common with our strong ties (i.e. if you’re looking for a new job and many of your good friends work at the company that you just left, they’re likely not going to be able to aid you much in your job search).
The beauty of social media websites like LinkedIn and Facebook is that we can instantly expand our social circles. If a cousin of a friend works at your dream company and happens to be a user of LinkedIn, you can strike up a conversation, and they only have to look at your shared connections list to be reminded of the fact that you share a strong tie, thus instantly creating a weak tie between the two of you. This scenario is directly related to the Strong Triadic Closure Property — social media works in a way such that if two people share a common friend, they have the option to “friend” or “connect with” the other person, creating a weak tie between the two and thus satisfying the principle.
Personally, I would argue that, in the job search, it never hurts to know people. I also think that Granovetter and Smith could have benefitted from increasing their scope of thought, i.e. considering non-professional connections. Although I agree that it is typically not going to be very helpful for a person in need of a job to contact former coworkers, what if your good friend from a club you were in in college is now working as a recruiter for a company you’re interested in? What if your friend could recommend you to their boss and set up an interview? I firmly believe that, as much as social media has aided in our making connections with all sorts of people from all around the world, it is very difficult to generalize what sorts of relationships will help us out in the professional world.