(1) http://www.prlog.org/10217335-is-six-degrees-of-separation-the-key-to-the-hidden-job-market.html

The Six Degrees of Separation theory, which suggests that that anyone is connected to anyone else within 6 connections of his or her friends and their friends’ friends, has always been a subject of debate. Many people are skeptical that it is in fact true, but research done at Columbia University in 2003 that legitimizes the theory, is starting to make many more people believers. As a result more people are beginning to study the potential advantages of such a reality.

The article I linked to above introduces the concept of a hidden job market. One social development capital company claims that 80% of jobs are “hidden” in one’s social network and that few people are aware or take advantage of this. The idea that jobs can be somewhat hidden in one’s social is backed up by the fact that people often learn about their current job through a distant acquaintance, which we learned in class. During class we talked about Mark Granovetter’s study of how people find jobs, which introduced the above fact and the “Strength of Weak Ties” hypothesis. This makes sense since weak ties, or distant acquaintances, often act as local bridges that greatly expand one’s network and therefore access to new information. This is something that could be of real relevance and importance in the current economic environment.

With the creation of online social sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, people are networking more than ever before, but most do not capitalize on their newly expanded networks. The social development company, Flowork, has found that the main obstacle people have in “leveraging one’s own social network, is a profoundly yet deceptively simple one: how to strategically use it” (1). Flowork has developed research-supported solutions to help people utilize their network.

With the high unemployment levels that the country is currently experiencing, many people are being forced to face the hidden job market. Luckily the hidden job market may not be that hidden; Flowork’s and Columbia University’s combined research suggests that the key to penetrating this hidden job market is just “strategic social networking” and that any job is only six or less network connections away.