By Emma Wu
Is it better to utilize stronger relationships or weaker relationships for recommendations to a career? This is a social science debate that has been going on for many centuries. There is a common, age-old idea that weaker ties were better for gaining more job recommendations and job applications. This idea seems contradictory, as we are all normally taught to cultivate stronger friendships for more opportunities. A team of researchers decided to conduct an experimental study to determine which of the two relationships has more effect on increasing opportunities for careers.
These researchers compiled data from LinkedIn, a career opportunity website, which compiled job openings and recommendations in one place. Through the monitoring of the website, they were able to document the numbers of new connections and job changes that came in the population. Through the conversations between the direct users, they measured the “tie-strength” of the relationship. This would determine whether it was a “strong or weak relationship”, then see the job changes that came with said relationships. Hence, through this data, they were able to determine that generally weaker ties came with more job recommendations and changes. In fact, this result supports a social psychology theory regarding people’s relationships. Sociologist Mark Granovetter proposed the weak tie theory, which states that people generally cluster in social spheres, those that are very close to them, and have bridges linking them to other spheres. These bridges are the ties, or connections. This is where the idea of a weak tie came from. A subset of this context is that those that have strong relationships with a person seeking a job application simply know the person too well. They have too much of an understanding of the person’s strengths and weaknesses, whereas those who know them, yet understand them only as an acquaintance, provide the perfect medium for job recommendations; they do not necessarily have a deeper understanding of the person, but like the person enough to recommend them a job. Therefore, this medium is achieved with a weaker tie, rather than a strong tie.
However, this information is not suggesting that weaker friendships and relationships are more beneficial in general. This information merely regards the search for jobs, not one’s personal life. This does not mean that one should hold everyone an arm’s length away. Strong relationships can provide support, happiness, comfort, and improve one’s quality of life. Many things in life are a balance, and having both weak ties and strong ties is one of them.
