Something to readChanging jobs
The power of weak ties in gaining new employment
A short news story on a LinkedIn experiment testing which contacts help people change jobs
Why it’s worth your time
When you need a new job, it's natural to start with the people you know best, and they may be the least likely to know about anything you haven't already heard of. This MIT News piece explains a five-year experiment on LinkedIn that put an old idea about acquaintances to a very large test, with a twist about how loose a connection can get before it stops helping. Six minutes can change who ends up on your list.
Why acquaintances can help your job search more than friends
The essay · 6 min · Free
How to get it
Opens their site. We don’t copy it here; we’d rather they get the read.
- Read the article.
Look for the section on the upside-down U shape, which shows that, counted by mutual connections, the most useful contacts weren't the very weakest ones, and the part on how the results differed between more and less digital industries.
- Message one person you know a little.
Pick someone you've met but rarely talk to, ideally with a few people in common, like a former colleague's teammate or someone from a past project. Send a short note asking for their advice.
You“I've been thinking about where I'd like to go next in my work, and you know your area far better than I do. Would you have fifteen minutes sometime this month so I could ask your advice?”
Good moments for this: at the start of a job searchwhen your usual contacts have run drya few months before you'll need a move
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Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
The most useful contacts in the study sat in the middle: people you share some connections with but don't know well. A note to a former colleague's teammate tends to get further than a cold message to someone with no overlap at all.
What might make this harder
The study ran on LinkedIn, but the idea is about people. Look through old email threads or past projects for someone you worked near but not with, and send the note to them.
Questions people ask
What did the LinkedIn weak ties study find?
Reported by MIT News, the study ran experiments on about 20 million LinkedIn members from 2015 to 2019 and found that weaker ties led to more job changes than strong ones. Counted by mutual connections, moderately weak ties were the most useful; counted by how often people interacted, the weakest were. The effect also varied by industry.
What is the strength of weak ties?
An idea from sociologist Mark Granovetter's 1973 paper: acquaintances move in different circles than close friends do, so they can pass along information and opportunities you wouldn't otherwise hear about.
How do I use weak ties to find a job?
List people you know a little and share some contacts with, then send one or two short notes a week asking for advice about their work. Keep the first conversation about learning.
What it says, and how it holds up
The idea is older than LinkedIn. In 1973 the sociologist Mark Granovetter argued that acquaintances matter in a way close friends don't, because your friends tend to know what you know while acquaintances move in other circles. It has been hard to test, since someone with a wide network may also be good at other things that help in a job search. This study got around that with an experiment: from 2015 to 2019, LinkedIn varied its People You May Know suggestions so that some members saw more weak ties and others more strong ones, then tracked the jobs that followed.
Across roughly 2 billion new connections and 600,000 new jobs, weaker ties led to more job moves, but only to a point. Measured by mutual connections, the best contacts were moderately weak, with usefulness falling off beyond about ten shared connections; measured by how often people messaged each other, the weakest ties helped most. Weak ties helped more in digital fields, and strong ties could help more in less digital ones, a split that deserves as much weight as the headline when you're searching. Sinan Aral, the MIT co-author, says himself that more research is needed on why.
Two things are worth weighing before you lean on the result. It's a university news story announcing a paper by its own professor and colleagues, three of whom have worked at LinkedIn, so it reads as an announcement more than an assessment. And the experiment worked by changing what millions of members were shown, with the jobs counted being ones identified through the site. In fields where hiring runs on someone vouching for you, like a small firm or a skilled trade, one strong tie who knows your work can open more than a dozen acquaintances.
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Picked by Truest and described in our own words. The original belongs to its creator. Last updated October 9, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.