It Still Comes Down To Who You Know

Person-to-person networking continues to be job seekers’ most successful tool. We recently analyzed job data on the nearly 60,000 individuals throughout North America to whom we provided career transition services over the past three years.

Traditional networking was the source of new career opportunities for 41% of job candidates last year, while Internet job boards accounted for 25% of new positions landed.

Source of New Job
(59,133 job seekers)

The job search is changing and some approaches are losing ground to others, but classic, systematic networking continues to be most effective way to find suitable employment. Certainly technology plays a growing role. But online social networking may not always be separate from traditional networking since one so often leads to the other. A job seeker uses the Internet to track down former associates or acquaintances and then reaches out to them in person. And, just like a cold call, the Internet is a way to make an initial contact with a prospective employer.

As revealing as the data may be, a job search is usually a more complicated and multi-layered process. Job candidates are encouraged to use as many tools as possible, every kind of research, any former contacts, and every opportunity to reach out to people who may be able to help. So in practical terms successful job candidates rely on a mix of approaches to find the new position most suitable for them.

Nevertheless, from year to year the data say that traditional networking is nearly twice as successful as any other job search method. Time and time over, the data proves that people tend to trust people they meet.