Take the racial part of the article as gospel truth, with a grain of salt, or disregard it entirely. But read this part and burn it into your memory:
Favoritism is almost universal in today’s job market. In interviews with hundreds of people on this topic, I found that all but a handful used the help of family and friends to find 70 percent of the jobs they held over their lifetimes; they all used personal networks and insider information if it was available to them.
Source: How Social Networks Drive Black Unemployment – NYTimes.com
Your friends and family and social network may be responsible for most of the jobs and perhaps the best job you will ever have. The lesson here is that you need as wide a social net as you can have. And you need to treat those in your network with integrity and fairness.
I have the great job I have now because I made connections with people when I was a teenager, and nearly twenty years later one of them remembered me and introduced me to the lead partner at my current firm. But for that introduction, I never would have gotten an interview.
I paid it forward, too. I helped a friend of mine from a former employer get a new job with a firm we work with. My introduction of him got him an interview he would not have otherwise gotten.
It took me until I was probably around 30 years old to learn that who you know will determine your success in life more than what you know.
So meet people. Be good to them. Help them find opportunities. And when you’re looking for an opportunity, you’ll have a much easier time of it.
