The demographics of the industry has shifted enormously in the last 20 yeas, with the median years of experience going way down. In an environment flooded with beginners and people who are not established it helps a lot to know people when you are getting started. Also as this dynamic has progressed even further you now see teams of new people being led by people with insufficient experience to really make good hiring decisions. This also makes referrals a bit more important than before.

> I've literally never gotten a job based on someone I knew

The industry is changing for new entrants, and it is considerably different today.

I've never known anyone who got a job on my team because they had a reference, and I am generally doing the hiring. The closest is someone did an internal transfer because of a reference. Never once for an outside hire.

Many tech companies in SF/SV you won't get an interview without a referral as a new grad at least.

Poor job prospects and nightly riots. Avoid these places like the plague.

> Poor job prospects and nightly riots

I hope you don't actually believe that's what's happening in American cities.

These articles are spread across several months. What do you believe is happening?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dozens-of-arrests-in-san-f...

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Free-for-all-as-...

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/05/30/george-floyd-protests...

So over the span of several months, in a region of approximately 8 million, there have been "dozens of arrests."

There were dozens of arrests on that particular day that the article was written about. There's been several months of such days of fires in the streets and violent protests. I just picked the first 3 articles that came up in a search.

I mean, I live here. That's not true - months of fires in the street?

Plenty of valid reasons to not want to move here. The idea that riots and people setting things on fire is like a serious problem for your day-to-day life? Absurd.

Oh, well as long as it's not impacting you, then I guess it's not a big deal.

I hope this is satire. SF/SV clearly have some of the best paying jobs in the country. And I haven't seen a riot anywhere around here all year.

If you can't get a job without a reference, and you don't have a reference, there's not good job prospects. It doesn't matter how much the jobs pay if they're impossible to get.

50% or more of my company hires people based on reference.

We both got anecdotes going either way.

I appreciate your wisdom. Outlook is bleak for soon to be new-grads so some of my feelings may be a projection of my interview discouragement. Stats still seem to have me worried... "Referrals account for between 30 and 50% of hires in the US...referrals only made up about 6% of total applications, they resulted in more than a quarter of hires. That’s more than the number hired via online job boards, even though those job hunters accounted for 60% of applications and 40% of interviews." [1]

[1] https://outline.com/5L3ezF

Also hitting the 20yr mark and also never got a job via a referral but I imagine at some point in your career it’s no longer necessary and your resume speaks for itself. Nowadays as a fresh entrant I get the impression it’s pretty competitive and a referral can make a huge difference.

I would say it tends to be the opposite.

If you're hiring a twenty-something Java developer, you're sort of hiring a commodity. Sure, you may care about schools, grades, interview, etc. but a lot of your decision is going to be based on their paper. They may not have worked anywhere, so they may not have much of a work record.

However, over time most people acquire a more unique toolbox of skills. In my case, since my first job out of grad school, I've basically been directly hired either by a referral or directly by the owner or a senior exec. My current job didn't even have a job posting for it.

> They may not have worked anywhere, so they may not have much of a work record.

Large tech companies often just don't take chances on people like this anymore.

I've been on the hiring team for the last 15 out of that 20 years. I've literally never had someone join my team who even had a reference. This includes juniors.

20 year as well. Only once did I get a job because I knew someone.

half and half for me. But most programming jobs I've gotten on my own merit.

Here's a fun fact the "It's not what you know, it's who you know" crowd don't understand. You earned those references based on your merit too. Nobody wants to work with a slackass.

Pretty much. It's the high school, non-career jobs I've gotten mainly by connections cause it's mainly labour or service industry. Those jobs don't require a lot of skill. Just show up on time, do the job.