I had heard of the six degrees phenomena before our class. However, one thing that I had never thought about until recently was the potential advantage one could take of such power. Sure, it’s fun to think that I am six people away from people like President Obama, Kevin Bacon, Joe “Six Pack”, and many others. Though once I had my fun with that, I realized there was so much potential to take advantage of these connections specifically to find jobs. After doing some searching, I came across a couple articles that touched upon this issue.

(1)    http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/03/six-degrees-of-separation-is-now-three/

(2)    http://www.pcworld.com/article/113738/consumer_watch_can_you_profit_from_online_networking.html

(3)    http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5077847.html

Article 1 highlights a very interesting fact, in that within a network of people who share a similar interest, people are connected by just three degrees of separation. The most common types of networks are usually split among friends, family, and work. Understanding this, one can essentially be connected to the necessary person in their business or profession by just a three degree separation. This can make job hunting much easier than it is.

Articles 2 and 3 discuss the idea of a specified job search. Article 3 mentions an experiment that Columbia University did similar to Milgram’s, inviting people to search for a stranger via the internet. The people were given basic info, such as name, location, and job title. The study discovered that people often had the most success when using professional contacts in a similar career as the stranger they were looking for. Article 2 states certain websites that have grown based on this idea of social networking strictly for businesses. One of the more popular of these websites is LinkedIn.

So if you’re interested in finding a job, realize it’s probably much closer than you would think, and that shooting off a couple of targeted e-mails may just give you the edge over Joe “Six Pack.”