Yea so I've worked for multiple tech companies in Silicon Valley and was in the 150+ club before leaving the area and every company I was hired at was via a connection. So going to networking events is something I never did. Just made friends at work and also tried to do some social things outside of work.. So my take is that you should change jobs and make some more friends to increase your salary. ;)

same here, just keep in touch with former coworkers that you enjoyed working with, and eventually one will end up somewhere thats neat and/or successful

Do what you need to do to get a job, but this makes you beholden to your friends for a job. Plus you can only work where your connections work. Could you get a job without connections just based on qualifications?

"Beholden"? How so?

It's not about making connections so that people will give you a job as a favor. It's about making connections so that you have social proof of your competence, plus to take advantage of the fact that someone telling your target "hey, take a look at this person" stands out much better than sending one more resume to a poorly monitored email account.

Which, in response to your last question, also means knowing someone who knows someone where you want to work is almost as good as a direct connection. You really don't need to know all that many people to have a usefully large second degree network (doubly so if you're in a tech hub).

Well, there are some foolish companies out there that trust in 'social proof' as you put it, so it is possible to get jobs that way. By beholden I mean that if the only reason you able to keep a job is on the word of another low level employee, then you are in a perilous position politically. No one except your connection believes your social proof because there are a lot of expert beginner people full of shit in technology. If they leave the company you are screwed and would probably have to go find another job. Yes, it is more difficult to get a job relying on skills and marketing, but it is better in the long term.

Yea I got jobs because people at the other companies said "hey that guy knows a lot about this area you should interview him", and when I interviewed everybody I talked to gave their approval to hire me based upon a technical interview, so in my area it was not possible to get a job based upon simply telling somebody you are good, you actually have to do well in the technical interview. I was a principal level hardware engineer, so not too low level. Maybe some people are getting jobs based upon just a simple recommendation, but I thought based upon the OP's data science area its more applicable to discuss the typical situation where the recommendation is followed by a technical interview. I don't know of a situation where anybody I worked with who got interviewed because their friend recommended them that the friend left then the other guy lost his job after that. But maybe that could happen if that person was really not interviewed well and the hiring manager was kinda clueless as to how bad the guy was..

This attitude is unproductive.

As a general rule, if someone hands your resume to a hiring manager, or says "I know that guy; he's good" that carries a hell of a lot more weight than you evidently think it does.

Yes, of course you need to know what you're doing. The point is that knowing someone at the firm you're applying to, or knowing someone who know someone there is useful. Like it or not, we are social animals and we respond to that stuff.

No it's not unproductive. It's better and more realistic. What will happen is that your hiring manager goes away after three months because managers are always trying to reorg and hire people beneath them to save their ass. You friend that handed your resume can be fired or quits to go work somewhere else. Suddenly there is no reason that you should have a job at that company and lots of other people are handing resumes to your new manager for people that they are trying to give your job to. Maybe you can stretch it for 9-12 months. It's far better for job security to just have the credentials and background to get a job without going the social route.

What you are talking about is nepotism.

Networking is where people, usually former colleagues, will remember you (positively) when their employer asks them "Hey, we need someone who can do X?" And vice versa.

If you can't make friends with people you work with, that will make networking hard or impossible but you can't blame that on "networking".

I think this depends on your definition of "networking". For me it means "meet and work with smart/competent/kind people and convince them you are the same". If you do that other people will want to work with you.

Given that definition, I agree it is concerning that OP doesn't know where to reach out. Perhaps the best course of action is addressing why that is the case.

I heard someone say that if you meet 100 people a week you will be unstoppable.