Mark Granovetter
The strength of weak ties
Opportunity arrives from people you rarely see
Granovetter, The Strength of Weak Ties, AJS, 1973
Who to ask when you're looking for work. Your instinct gives the wrong answer; here's what the data gave.
What actually happened?
In 1973 Granovetter surveyed 282 people about how they found their jobs. Among those who got there through a personal contact, 56% said they saw that person only occasionally, and 28% said rarely — the people who mattered were the ones they barely knew. That runs against instinct: your closest friends want to help you most. But the reason isn't willingness, it's information. Your circles overlap almost completely with your closest friends'; someone you rarely see is standing in a different network.
What matters isn't willingness, it's whether the news is new
Close friends are more willing to help and hold almost the same information you do — same people, same news. A weak tie is not more generous. He is standing somewhere else, holding the part you can't reach from where you are.
You already knew about the opening in the team chat. The genuinely new thing comes from the person you see once a year.
So maintain breadth, not depth
This changes where the effort goes: rather than pouring all of it into a few people, keep more weak ties in the 'still knows who you are' state. The cost is tiny — an occasional message, a hello with no request attached — and that's enough to keep the line usable.
Contacting old colleagues only once you want to move is usually too late. That line has to be kept while you don't need it.
When you move, weak ties are what breaks first
Change city or leave an industry and what disappears isn't the close friends — those survive — it's the wide band of people you saw occasionally. That's exactly the layer that supplies new opportunities, so the drought after a move isn't imagined. It's structural.
Six months in a new city and nothing comes to you. You didn't get worse. That layer hasn't been built yet.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: you're looking for something — a job, a partner, customers — and circling the same few people.
Ask first: of everyone I've contacted in six months, how many do I see only a few times a year? If almost none, one whole source of opportunity is switched off.
Where it goes wrong: reading it as collect contacts — a weak tie only works if the person still knows who you are and what you do; and don't neglect close friends for this. That's a different loss.
Lines to keep
Of people who found work through a contact, 56% saw them only occasionally.
Your closest friends want to help most. The useful news sits further out.
When you move, the layer that breaks first is the one that brought opportunities.