Networking (In)Efficiency

Procrastinating my Econ project and inspired to write something about networking at the same time...

It could be said that networking is highly efficient and highly inefficient at the same time. Sometime earlier this semester, my first in the full-time MBA program at the UConn School of Business, I heard the following statement: most jobs are already filled by the time they are advertised. (When I say "job" I also include "internship" by extension, since that's what I'm talking about right now). By the time a company has realized a requirement, defined a job, and funded it, someone internal to the process has already decided who best to fill the job. It could be someone within the company, or someone who has done an expert job of marketing themselves to the company through networking, previous job searches, or uploading a resume. So many of these jobs probably aren't even advertised in the first place. From the companies' perspective, this is highly efficient.

Conversely, those of us on the outside looking in spend countless hours searching for jobs. Eventually all job searchers are matched with a job, ideally the best job for their skill set, with some percentage left to populate the traditional or current unemployment percentage. Assuming a representative selection of people have to find jobs the traditional way, it's a highly inefficient process no matter how you slice it. Because of outside pressures job searchers apply for multiple jobs, often those they aren't even qualified for. And despite, or perhaps because of, the information carrying capacity of the Internet, jobs go unfilled because they are too difficult to find.

If only there was a more orderly system of matching the right job, to the right person, at the right time.