About two years ago, I applied for a job at JP Morgan that I’d found on LinkedIn. I didn’t fit the profile for the role perfectly, but it was good enough that I was invited for the first recruiter call and then to the next interview. It was at this interview that the hiring manager and I concluded that I probably wasn’t well suited for the role.

A few weeks later, I was contacted for another interview at JP Morgan, but this time for a role I hadn’t applied to. I showed up, obviously. The hiring manager informed me that I’d been recommended for the role by the previous hiring manager, who thought I might fit their team better. Unfortunately, this role didn’t work out either.

But here’s what’s interesting about that experience: that hiring manager who redirected me was hardly a close contact. We’d only spoken once. Yet they opened a door I hadn’t knocked on. This is what Mark Granovetter discovered in the 1970s when he interviewed professional workers in Newton, a suburb of Boston, United States, who had recently changed employment. Most found their jobs through acquaintances, people they barely knew but had some connection with, rather than from friends.

In a 2022 interview, about 50 years later, Granovetter explained, “Your weak ties connect you to networks that are outside of your own circle. They give you information and ideas that you otherwise would not have gotten.” Your close friends know what you know. They move in the same circles, hear the same gossip, see the same opportunities.

It’s the distant acquaintance—the former colleague, the university friend you haven’t spoken to in years, the person you met briefly at a conference—who exists in a different world and can therefore offer you access to different information. And once you’ve exhausted the information in your immediate circle with no luck at getting what you want, that’s the next most available and valuable information source.

Does this still apply in the online world of today?

In 2022, researchers at LinkedIn (in collaboration with academics from Stanford, MIT, and Harvard) revisited Granovetter’s work with modern data. Using information from 20 million users over five years, during which 600,000 new jobs were created, they confirmed his thesis but added nuance. MIT professor Sinan Aral noted, “When we look at the experimental data, weak ties are better, on average, for job mobility than strong ties.”

But the relationship wasn’t straightforward. Harvard Business School Professor Iavor Bojinov explained, “It’s not a matter of ‘the weaker the better’ or ‘the stronger the worse.’ Our results show that the greatest job mobility comes from moderately weak ties—social connections between the very weakest ties and ties of average relationship strength.”

The sweet spot, they noted, was around 10 mutual contacts on LinkedIn. If you share more than that with someone on LinkedIn, the usefulness of your connection to the other person, in job-hunting terms, diminishes. Too close and you’re back in the same information pool. Too distant and there’s no foundation for the connection to bear fruit.

Note: I think LinkedIn has evolved considerably. More people now connect with those they don’t know at a faster rate, and the idea of 10 mutual connections may not be representative. You’re best placed to do this filtering for yourself in terms of how weak or strong a connection is, rather than relying on a theoretical “10 mutual connections” limit.

They also discovered something interesting about industry differences. Aral explained, “Weak ties are better in fields more suitable for machine learning, artificial intelligence, more software intensive, more suitable for remote work, and so on. In analogue industries, stronger ties can be more important.”

Consider Kate Darling’s experience. She ran a music-marketing consultancy in Carpentersville, Illinois, just outside Chicago, and co-owned a popular local music store. When the pandemic hit, both businesses were slammed. Her closest contacts in the music business couldn’t offer a way out; all they could see were hard times too. She needed a helping hand from someone with a totally different take on the opportunities that might exist. The winning ticket: an outreach email from a casual acquaintance, software executive Mike Grzegorek —a man who had taken music lessons in her shop and referred her to his fast-growing marketing firm. The pattern repeats itself across industries and decades.

Granovetter himself noted the enduring relevance of his theory:

“No matter what kind of big data or artificial intelligence or machine learning that employers are able to draw on, they will never know as much about a person as someone who actually knows them and has worked with them and knows their personality and knows what they do in their spare time and how they approach problems. There will always be more knowledge to be gotten from personal contacts of individuals than you can get from any kind of informatics.”

The counterintuitive truth remains: the people who know you least may be precisely the ones who help you most. But only if you’ve done the work to create those connections. Remember you don’t have to form a strong tie with them.

How to Find Weak Ties

Weak ties exist in the periphery of your network. Here’s where to look:

  • Former colleagues and classmates – People from previous jobs or university maintain value precisely because they’ve moved into different networks since you last connected. They know you from a specific context but now operate in entirely different worlds.
  • Conference and event contacts – Industry events introduce you to professionals in adjacent fields or different organisations. You share interests but operate in different circles, which makes these connections valuable bridges.
  • Friends of friends – These second-degree connections represent the classic weak tie. Your friend vouches for you, but the connection itself opens access to an entirely new network.
  • Professional association members – Joining industry groups or volunteer organisations exposes you to people with shared interests but diverse backgrounds. You’re connected by purpose but separated by circumstance.
  • Online community participants – Engaging in forums, LinkedIn posts and comment sections, or professional social media creates weak ties across geographical and organisational boundaries. You build relationships through ideas rather than proximity.

The key is maintaining breadth rather than depth. Each peripheral connection represents a bridge to a different world with its own opportunities and information. You cannot be everywhere, but your weak ties can be.

How to Leverage Weak Ties

The art here is in being genuine. People can sense manipulation. Here’s what works:

  • Maintain sporadic, genuine contact – Share articles relevant to their work. Congratulate them on achievements. Catch up without asking for favours. These touchpoints make future conversations natural rather than transactional. You’re not collecting contacts; you’re maintaining relationships.
  • Be specific in your requests – “Do you know of any jobs?” is too vague to be useful. “I’m looking for roles in fintech that involve data analysis—do you know anyone working in that space I might speak with?” gives your contact something concrete to work with.
  • Offer value in return – If you come across opportunities or information that might benefit someone in your network, pass it along. Weak ties work both ways. Reciprocity strengthens connections and makes future interactions more productive.
  • Reconnect with dormant ties – Don’t hesitate to reach out to people you haven’t spoken with in years. A brief message acknowledging the time gap whilst explaining your current situation often receives a warmer response than you’d expect. People remember shared experiences even when years have passed.
  • Use mutual connections as bridges – When reaching out to a weak tie, reference how you know each other or mention mutual contacts. This context helps them place you and increases the likelihood of a helpful response.

Mistakes to Avoid

Understanding what not to do matters as much as knowing what to do:

  • Don’t confuse weak ties with cold contacts – The power of weak ties lies in the existing relationship, however tenuous. Messaging complete strangers on LinkedIn and calling it “networking” misses the point entirely. You need some prior connection, even if it’s just having attended the same conference three years ago.
  • Avoid only reaching out when you need something – If your weak ties only hear from you during job searches, the relationship becomes obviously instrumental. Would you help someone who only contacts you when they want something? Neither would they.
  • Don’t neglect your strong ties in favour of weak ones – Close relationships remain essential for emotional support, mentorship, and identity. The research suggests weak ties are better for accessing novel information and opportunities, not that strong ties are worthless. You need both. One opens doors; the other sustains you.
  • Don’t treat networking as a numbers game – Having 5,000 LinkedIn connections means little if you’ve never actually interacted with 4,950 of them. The LinkedIn study found that moderately weak ties were most valuable. Quality and occasional engagement matter more than sheer quantity.
  • Avoid being disingenuous – People sense when someone is collecting contacts purely for instrumental purposes. Show genuine interest in people’s work and lives, even if the relationship remains casual. Authenticity matters because relationships, even weak ones, are still human.

The hiring manager at JP Morgan who redirected me to another role presented a great example of how weak ties work. I can imagine that you also have a relatable story from your experience or that of a friend. Weak ties create options where none existed before. I hope you grow bold to use them. Surprisingly, more people are willing to be part of your success story than you’re aware of.

Based on these research papers: