Mark Grannovetter observed in the 1970's that people got jobs through more distant connections. He called this "The Strength of Weak Ties". This was part of Mark's doctoral work at Harvard University's Department of Social Relations, which I find truly humbling. A friend who is a Director of Alumni Relations (but asked to remain anonymous) commented that college basket ball managers that belong to a "family" related to a famous lead coach with a distinctive style have better career resilience and win more prestigious positions. Informational interviewing, which gains access to distant connections, is the basis of the most popular job hunter's guide.
Grannovetter's observation is a good rule of thumb for most prospecting. Your immediate close connections at work or through your family are unlikely to give you a lead into a big new opportunity. You need to spread the net wide. Even where you personally know someone directly responsible, they will need you to build consensus for them inside their organization to get a good decision, to avoid the accusation of favouritism. In my own experience, old friends quickly hand me off to a neutral "broker" who can assess my proposal on its merits and reject it without fear for the friendship.
We are particularly blessed here in Cambridge. Universities including Anglia Ruskin and Cambridge and our local Hi Tech and Retail sectors continuously attract a diverse and well-connected population into our town, who teach or learn some stuff and then go home to apply it there. A quick analysis of first names of the people registered on the Cambridge Network website to attend events or receive job offers shows a more equal balance of sexes and a wide range of ethnic origin consistent with the diversity of our home town. The East of England has already benefited from the huge growth of the Cambridge cluster over the past decades, and the diversity of our connections is shielding us from the downturn. The friendships we form here draw us into international markets - many Cambridge Network members make over 80% of their sales overseas. Taiwan moved up the PC production value chain through just such personal ties.
I hear local townspeople saying that our visiting scholars should "go back to their own country". I hope that if young people visiting here from other countries do return to their own home regions, they take some more positive experiences with them. Cambridge Network will welcome weak ties.
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