The Theory of Weak Ties

by Duncan Mathison

Kim Thomson wrote today in the SF Gate (The San Francisco Chronicle’s website) about a woman who had exhausted her primary network of friends in her job search. She decided it was time to turn to her “acquaintances” network and it was from one of these “weak tie” sources where she unexpectedly landed a job from someone she had never met before.

Some might suggest that talking to people on the margins of your professional and social network is just a smart numbers game. More people equal more possibilities. Even if you connect with someone you have only met once at least it is another connection. Who knows where it could lead?

But there’s more to it than that.

Smart job seekers need to pay attention to a number of important insights research in social networks has revealed. As with much of social science research, it seems obvious when you think about it, but most of us don’t.  (Check this book)

For example, research shows that we tend to belong to one or more “clusters” of social networks that are more or less isolated from other wider networks.  In other words, the people you know tend to also know each other.  One sure sign that you are stuck in a network cluster occurs when networking meetings are spent catching up on what’s happening with mutual friends.

This is the sure sign that your network is not working and it is time to break out of your cluster. Thank goodness for LinkedIn. Dig deep to reconnect. Find people in your past professional and personal life to talk to about your quest for a new job.  

Think it’s cheesy to network with people you have lost touch with only when you need them? Absolutely not. People only have so much social bandwidth to maintain a network. We are not all social gadflies.

But there is an exception to this rule: If the table was turned would you would be unwilling to help a “weak tie”? If so then just stay in your own sad isolated little cluster.

Tags: Duncan Mathison, hidden job market, job search, networking

This entry was posted on Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 11:12 am and is filed under Blog, job search. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.