Re-evaluating the importance of weak ties in finding a job
The author of this article suggests that the best way to find employment in the modern job market is no longer through weak ties. Instead, Ilana Gershon claims that “workplace ties” (i.e. connections with your current or former co-workers, bosses, clients, etc.) are more useful. As discussed in class, weak ties are powerful tools for finding opportunities outside of your immediate network and knowledge base. In his 1973 study, “The Strength of Weak Ties,” social scientists Mark Granovetter defined several types of interpersonal connections: weak, strong, and absent ties. Granovetter’s analysis of 100 workers showed that weak ties were most effective for helping to find a new job. This is because the people who you are strongly tied to are more likely to possess the same information that you do about job opportunities. The weaker connections in a network provide pathways to other social networks that allow for novel information to reach an individual.
In this article, Gershon sampled a set of 141 “white-collar job seekers in the Bay Area” who successfully changed jobs from 2012 to 2014. In her study, 17% of the participants were helped by a weak tie in their networks. On the other hand, 60% reported that “someone they had worked with in the past helped them find their next job.” From anecdotal evidence, these workers were most helped in finding successful changes of employment by their connections who could attest to their skills and abilities as a worker and a colleague. Gershon goes on to suggest that this shift in behavior is due to the “wildly altered media ecology,” wherein finding job postings and opportunities has become much easier thanks to the Internet. On the other side of the equation, hiring managers must now sift through many more resumes and applications. As such, having a connection that can more accurately speak to your workplace behavior is more valuable in helping you to actually secure a job.
This finding is certainly interesting and merits further study, preferably in a less ad hoc and more controlled environment. I do not doubt that social networking behaviors have evolved as the world has changed thanks to the Internet. On the other hand, I am not entirely convinced that “workplace ties” do not fit into the existing schema of strong vs. weak ties. Additionally, it would be interesting to see if this is a localized effect unique to job markets such as that found in the Bay Area as opposed to a more widespread societal shift. I personally look forward to seeing more research into interpersonal ties, especially in a world where more and more people cannot remember a time before the Internet.