When it comes to finding out about new jobs----or, for that matter, new information, or new ideas----"weak ties" are always more important than strong ties. Your friends, after all, occupy the same world that you do. Your acquaintances, on the other hand, by definition occupy a very different world than you. They are much more likely to know something that you don't.
Sociologist Mark Granovetter, in his classic 1974 study "Getting a Job," looked at several hundred professional and technical workers from Boston suburb of Newton, interviewing them in some detail on their employment history. He found 56 percent of those he talked to found their job through a personal connection. People weren't getting their jobs through their friends. They were getting them through their acquaintances.
Acquaintances, in short, represent a source of social capital, and the more acquaintances you have the more powerful you are.
For more information about building your social capital, go to:
http://home.att.net/~coachthee
Source: Click here for "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown and Company)
John G. Agno, certified executive & business coach, www.CoachedtoSuccess.com