What Color Is Your Parachute 2018 by Richard N. Bolles copy

A word about contacts in general: research has revealed that in general the
more of a social life you have, the more people you know, the more time
you spend with people outside of work, the more likely you are to find a
job. And the more people you know who are in other fields than your own,
the more likely you are to be able to effectively change careers. Often, in
fact, your contacts will turn up job opportunities for you even before you
go out formally searching. Problem: 1 in 4 workers don’t network at all.
And 41% would like to network more but don’t feel they have time. Those
statistics are for the U.K., 2 but similar findings are found around the world.
Another discovery from research is that the farther afield these contacts
are from your usual social circles, the more likely they are to help your
job-hunt. If you ask yourself how much time you spend with your contacts,
your contacts will divide into those with whom you have “strong ties” and
those with whom you have “weak ties,” the latter being defined as people
you see only occasionally or rarely—maybe only once a year, or even less.
These “weak ties” will strengthen your job-search immeasurably.
The findings from the research have been summarized by Mark
Granovetter, professor at Stanford, as “the strength of weak ties.” As he
writes in his classic Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers,
“There is…a structural tendency for those to whom one is only weakly
tied, to have better access to job information one does not already have.
Acquaintances, as compared to close friends, are more prone to move in
different circles than one’s self. Those to whom one is closest are likely to
have the greater overlap with those one already knows, so that the
information to which they are privy is likely to be much the same as that
which one already has.” 3
Now, once you’ve found a place that interests you and you want to get
an interview there, there is a particular kind of contact that will save your
neck. I call such a contact a “Bridge-Person.” What I mean by that title, is
that they know you; and they know them (your target), and thus bridge the
gap between you and a job there.
You can’t identify a bridge-person until you have a target company or
organization in mind. But when that time comes, here’s how you go about
identifying bridge-people:
1. The website LinkedIn is your best friend here. 4 Each employer you
want to pursue should have a Company Profile page. (Unless the
company is just too small.) Identify what place you want to approach,