[kindall]

People always say that, but only one of the full-time jobs I've had in my thirty-year career has come from networking. In one other situation I was the guy who got several former co-workers hired, all at once, a frankly freak occurrence I still don't quite believe actually happened. My current job, I was contacted out of the blue by the team's manager on LinkedIn. Most of my jobs have come from being active on the Internet, or else from applying cold.

[vidarh]

It depends a lot on your network and pure luck.

Here's an example of how much it can matter:

* I co-founded my first company with people I met at university.

* We got our first investor thanks to a chance encounter between said investor and one of my co-founders at a bar.

* When we exited that company, our investors lawyer arranged a meeting for us with another of his clients, who hired us.

* One of the execs at that company hired me for his next startup, and introduced me to his brothers, so I could work part-time for them until he got funding.

* One of my co-workers at that company was one of my co-founders at my next company, and our other co-founders were friends of that person. One of them had worked for the VCs who invested in our first round.

* [I went to Yahoo for a couple of years -- no connections there.]

* The general counsel at my last pre-Yahoo startup pulled me into my next startup.

* [I then went to a web dev agency, no connections there]

* The co-founder of the company I worked at before the web-dev agency contacted me about some contracting, and I ended up joining full time (my current job)

So Yahoo and the web dev agency are the only places I've worked over the last 26 years where my resume has mattered. Even then, at the web-dev agency I name-dropped one of people who'd hired me previously, and it impressed them, so who knows how much my resume really mattered there either.

[vitaflo]

>People always say that, but only one of the full-time jobs I've had in my thirty-year career has come from networking.

Funny, only one of the gigs I've gotten in my 30 year career has come from not networking...my first one. Every job after that has come about because of people I know recommending me for the job.

This has been super helpful over the past 15 years as I've been an independent consultant. In fact, I went indie because I had a network.

I don't need to look for gigs anymore, people come to me. I turn down way more gigs than I can take. And I haven't had to have an actual interview for a job in over 20 years.

I'm sure this isn't the norm, but it certainly makes work life a lot easier.

[cercatrova]

> People always say that, but only one of the full-time jobs I've had in my thirty-year career has come from networking.

Does that not just imply that your network wasn't that good but not necessarily that the adage "who you know more is more important than what you know" is actually false?

[bluGill]

Many people do get hired cold, but it is the last choice of anyone hiring. If you know the right person you skip to the front of the line with no competition.

[theshrike79]

I've got exactly zero jobs without networking. =)

My first summer jobs were with people my dad knew. The first actual programming job I got because I happened to be tagging along with my friend who had a job interview.

From there on in I got jobs mostly because I had a friend inside vouching for my talents.

This also goes the other way, I wouldn't join a company where I don't have inside information on how shit actually gets done.

[Cerium]

I have the opposite experience. I have never landed a job that I didn't already have a good contact and recommendation for, of course that is probably because I have never tried.

[taneq]

Interesting... Only two of my jobs have not.