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> Almost all jobs are filled through personal connections. I see this repeated online, but is there any data to actually back this claim up? In my experience o

> Almost all jobs are filled through personal connections. I see this repeated online, but is there any data to actually back this claim up? In my experience only a small number of jobs get filled through referrals etc.

notahacker 3y ago
And the sort of jobs that have a referred candidate they want to hire aren't putting up a free listing on Indeed to get 60 people send often quite good and sometimes massively overqualified CVs at the click of a button, they're putting their job ads where nobody looks and demanding they answer questions or write a cover letter explaining the appeal of $genericcompany...
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
I think this might be a difficult thing to get data on, as I don't think most companies would want to release this info. But I would say in my experience that the more senior the role and the more experience someone has (the author had VP-level experience) it is absolutely the case that you lean on referral networks. Even at the very senior level where people are hired through executive search firms, a big reason those firms exist is to ensure confidentiality throughout the process, but most of the names they come up with aren't usually unknown to the hiring company. Also, it's important to understand that it doesn't need to be direct referrals (i.e. someone at the company saying "We should hire Bob X for this job"). Oftentimes it's things as simple as LinkedIn posts sharing job openings with your network, and then when that's passed around have someone reach out through a mutual contact.
- angarg12 3y ago
  Let's be honest, how many people on HN (or elsewhere) have a VP level job? Even if it is true that jobs are the very senior level are filled this way, that's a very small % of the total (in my company, much smaller than 1%). So that still wouldn't make the claim that "most jobs are not posted/filled by referrals" true.

notahacker 3y ago

And the sort of jobs that have a referred candidate they want to hire aren't putting up a free listing on Indeed to get 60 people send often quite good and sometimes massively overqualified CVs at the click of a button, they're putting their job ads where nobody looks and demanding they answer questions or write a cover letter explaining the appeal of $genericcompany...

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

I think this might be a difficult thing to get data on, as I don't think most companies would want to release this info. But I would say in my experience that the more senior the role and the more experience someone has (the author had VP-level experience) it is absolutely the case that you lean on referral networks. Even at the very senior level where people are hired through executive search firms, a big reason those firms exist is to ensure confidentiality throughout the process, but most of the names they come up with aren't usually unknown to the hiring company. Also, it's important to understand that it doesn't need to be direct referrals (i.e. someone at the company saying "We should hire Bob X for this job"). Oftentimes it's things as simple as LinkedIn posts sharing job openings with your network, and then when that's passed around have someone reach out through a mutual contact.

angarg12 3y ago
Let's be honest, how many people on HN (or elsewhere) have a VP level job? Even if it is true that jobs are the very senior level are filled this way, that's a very small % of the total (in my company, much smaller than 1%). So that still wouldn't make the claim that "most jobs are not posted/filled by referrals" true.