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.