Play the Kevin Bacon Game to Land the Job You Want

I was listening to jobradio.fm the other day and heard some great practical tips on leveraging your network to land your next job.

As you may know, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon was a trendy game in the last decade in which the players tried to connect any film actor in history to Kevin Bacon as quickly as possible and in as few links as possible. The Bacon number of an actor or actress is the number of degrees of separation he or she has from Bacon, as defined by the game.

All the rage on college campuses in the early 1990s, this trivia game is a variation on the famed "Six Degrees of Separation" concept widely popularized through exposure in the play by John Guare and adapted for the big screen in 1993 (featuring a stellar cast including Stockard Channing, Will Smith, and Donald Sutherland). According to this concept, if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is an average of six "steps" away from each person on Earth.

The idea actually has some pretty solid support and research behind it, such as an ABC Primetime investigation that verified it is a small world after all and a study by Microsoft researchers that examined records of 30 billion e-mails among 180 million people in various countries and found that any two strangers are, on average, distanced by precisely 6.6 degrees of separation.

What exactly does this mean for you? It means that you really can in all likelihood use networking to zero in on a valuable contact that will help you successfully conclude your job search, and you can probably do it in far fewer than 6 steps. After all, you are probably not trying to reach the Queen of England or the Pope--just someone who works in your field of interest or at a company where you would like to work.

So how does one play the Kevin Bacon Game to land a dream job? We all know by now that networking is one of the most effective ways (if not the most effective way) to search for employment. The Kevin Bacon strategy encourages us to think outside the box when considering who is in our network, to leverage that network to the utmost, and build on it.

Here are 3 key rules that will greatly expand your network horizons and help you to achieve success in your networking efforts:

>>> Look outside your normal network. Consider people such as your hairdresser, mechanic, doctor, manicurist, pharmacist, etc. who know a lot of people.

>>> E-mail everyone in your address book with specific information on the job you want. Ask each person to identify at least one person they know in your field of interest (or if possible who works at a company that interests you).

>>> Once you have made a new contact, never fail to ask "Who might you suggest I speak with next?"

You'll be surprised at how rapidly your network will expand, and amazed at the unlikely sources from which good job leads will flow.

Posted by: Laurie Smith

Comments

[Resume Service]

Hi Laurie:

“Look outside your normal network. Consider people such as your hairdresser, mechanic, doctor, manicurist, pharmacist, etc. who know a lot of people.” This is excellent advice. Connections can be made in the unlikeliest of places. ABM – Always Be Marketing!

Resume to Referral
Resume and Career Services
http://www.resumebycprw.com

[Chandlee Bryan]

Laurie,

Wonderful post. I'll add a small footnote: It's wise to also consider the six degree theory when looking at relationship management. Over the years, I've worked with hundreds of college students in their "first job search." One of my favorite happy endings--Dan, a recent graduate who landed his target job after helping a complete stranger who fell in a hotel parking lot accident. Ironically, Dan was on the way to an interview when he stepped into rescue mode. He asked for a follow-up call from the hotel so that he could know that "everything was okay" and the woman he helped hired him for exactly the same position he was interviewing for--only at a higher salary.

Chance favors the prepared!

[Julie O'Malley]

So true, Laurie. Your interviewer might be your next-door neighbor's favorite cousin, but you'll never know if you don't spread the word (to everyone you encounter) that you're looking.