mechanical_fish, I'm not trying to provoke you. Your on-topic and thoughtful responses are so annoying! Why can't you write rude monosyllabic flames like every

mechanical_fish, I'm not trying to provoke you. Your on-topic and thoughtful responses are so annoying! Why can't you write rude monosyllabic flames like everyone else on the web? ;) But, seriously, I overstated my case a bit. I didn't mean to imply that networking is some kind of miracle solution to the hiring problem -- for either the employer or the employee. AFAIK there is no miracle solution to the hiring problem. We're all forced to play it by ear. But because there is no one best practice for finding the right person for a given software job, people are using a bunch of different practices. Which is why you can't look at a single aspect of the job-search market (job ads posted to Monster.com; density of keywords on the resumes that are slid under your door; number of recruiter phone calls, whatever) and expect it to accurately represent the whole state of the field.