Six Degrees of Separation: Is it the key to the hidden job market?

Article from Flowork International

In 2003, research emerging out of Columbia University finally corroborated the age-old notion of “six degrees of separation” as legitimate, suggesting we are all much more connected than we realize.In the face of increasingly negative media reports respecting the present economic situation, should we embrace this logic in seeking employment?It has been said that 80% of jobs are hidden. In other words, there may be job opportunities available with contacts (or byway of a contact’s contacts) within an individual’s network. This clearly valuable information is often missed by job seekers. After all, with the rise in popularity of “cyber” social networking sites, including Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, the focus has been increasingly on establishing new connections. Ironically, though, as most of us focus on expanding our list of contacts, we have little awareness that our own circle of friends and family could potentially offer a veritable wealth of job-related resources.Thus, if the science supporting “six degrees of separation” is true, we must find ways to help not only job hunters, but employment agencies, government program managers, HR professionals, and recruiters alike.Flowork founder Dr. John-Paul Hatala suggests that few of us know how to truly tap into our existing social network and gain access to that elusive hidden job market. “There are several research-supported solutions,” he says, “which can arm the newly unemployed with the know-how and confidence needed to make headway in the face of an increasingly daunting job-search.”Dr. Hatala’s research and associated training programs reveal that the main challenge facing job seekers, in terms of leveraging one’s own social network, is a profoundly yet deceptively simple one: how to strategically use it.Indeed, most of us fail to think strategically about our social networks, Hatala suggests. People do not know how to approach their circle of friends and broach the topic. The good news, Hatala goes on to say, is that it is a trainable and learnable skill-set.“Strategic social networking” then, will be a key for many of us these days, in order to penetrate what seems to an otherwise elusive, “hidden” job market. After all, the unemployment rate currently is the highest it has been for some time. By learning to leverage one’s social network, however, one can avoid becoming a statistic.The answer, if the research is any indicator, may be less than six degrees away. It may be as close as your existing social network. According to Dr. Hatala, the necessary strategy and specific know-how in terms of how to leverage our social networks may thus be the distinguishing factor which determines the success of some job hunters versus others, vis-à-vis this “hidden” job market that so many of us are now facing.