[commandlinefan]

> It's not about your skills really, it's about who you know

I've been hearing people give this advice my entire life, which is about a half century now. It's never been true for me. Roughly half the jobs I've had in my life I've gotten through a referral and the other half I've gotten "cold" by just applying to an open req and being the best candidate that applied.

By FAR the best jobs I've had were the ones where I got in on the strength of my abilities. Every job I've ever worked that I was referred into ended up being a nightmare that I couldn't get out of fast enough.

[gaws]

> It's never been true for me.

> Roughly half the jobs I've had in my life I've gotten through a referral

Someone needed to know you well enough to make the referral.

[aiisjustanif]

> Someone needed to know you well enough to make the referral.

Not true, many companies give incentives to employees if they hire their referral. Why would I need that employee need to know them.

[gaws]

A referral means you vouch for the person. If you blindly refer someone and he or she turns out to be shit, chances are that'll back for you. Who would want that?

[iteria]

I've found that jobs through cold applying have been gambles. Sometimes they suck. Sometimes they don't and I get great new connections from them. Getting jobs via connections is way more hit or miss since it's all timing, but every time the job has been great.

I'd say that connections are worth it for increasing your chances of netting a job because they tend to be good jobs since someone you know vetted it. Cold applying is easier to get a job period I think, but the quality in every domain is all over the place. It's a trade off.

[zingababba]

Similar experience here but with one further observation. I honestly have never had to look hard for a job, ending up getting scooped up fairly quickly, so I've spent a bit of time pondering this. For me I believe my superpower in this regard is my attitude, I'm an extremely athletic guy with a squarely type A personality and I've been told I exude "just get stuff done" - people love seeing that shit.

[MattPalmer1086]

Same here, and it has almost never been true for me either.

I've had maybe two jobs in my life on the basis of who I knew, and they were both kinda crap. The best ones I got cold on the basis of my ability and presentation.

I get that for some people networking feels like their best shot. I'm socially awkward and find networking stressful. Just shows there are multiple ways to get a good job, but you have to play to your own strengths.

[paulcole]

> being the best candidate that applied.

Not to burst your bubble but there’s a near 100% chance you’re wrong about this.

Remember that the goal of hiring isn’t to hire the best person who applies.

The goal is to hire somebody who can do the job at the wage that’s offered. The best person might reject an offer or not even get one in the first place.

[MattPalmer1086]

The goal is definitely to try to hire the best person who applies. A company might not succeed in that and take the second best, or even worse.

If you get a job offer it means that you were the best candidate that was available to the company. I'm cool with that personally, I don't agonise that some rock star may have rejected the role.

[paulcole]

Well to be fair, there’s no objective measure of “best” which makes this debate pretty pointless.

But also, why would I want to hire the best? Wouldn’t that mean that I can’t make a decision until I’ve seen all the candidates? Why don’t I simply look for the first that meets the requirements of the job?

> If you get a job offer it means that you were the best candidate that was available to the company

Again, I’ll disagree here. If you get an offer from the company it means that you got an offer from the company. You can tell yourself it was because you were the best available, but probably not true.

[MattPalmer1086]

You try to hire the best candidate you see. At least that's what I've always tried to do on the other side of the interviewing table...