When Can You Start? by Paul Freiberger

Author:Paul Freiberger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Career Uplift Productions

A Degree Too Far?

In old-school detective fiction, the third degree is not something to wish for. What about on LinkedIn, where third-degree connections are the most distant contacts deemed worthy of a name? There’s no fourth or fifth LinkedIn degree.

Consider what a third-degree connection really means. You know Ann, and you and Ann are first-degree connections. Ann knows Beth, who you’ve never met, but if you were to run into Beth at a party and the talk turned to mutual friends, you’d have a point of meaningful connection. “You worked with Ann? We were college roommates for a year! Did you know she just started a new job at Universal Tectonics?”

Now move one degree more. You know Ann. Ann knows Beth. Beth knows Carol. When you run into Carol at another party, the fact that Carol knows Beth, someone you don’t know, means little or nothing to you. The fact that you know Ann means little or nothing to Carol. After all, Ann is a stranger to Carol.

At the third degree, we’re talking about a connection’s connection’s connection. If one criticism of seeking introductions from a first-degree connection is that it can take time, how much more time is involved in enlisting the aid of two people, one of whom you don’t even know? When a relationship is this attenuated, it starts to feel like one of those ancient curses that will visit ruin upon your children’s children’s children, unto the seventh generation.

As usual, we’re not dealing in absolutes. Third-degree connections are not completely useless all the time. They have their place, but they tend to be slow, they’re awkward, and you can reasonably argue that they’re not really connections in any meaningful sense of the word. Simply put, they’re not the connections into which you should invest most of your energy.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.