ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the job-matching process from the employer's side, examines the use of social networks in both recruitment from the external labor market and intraorganizational promotion and transfer processes. Individuals can succeed by drawing on the social capital that resides in their networks only if employer staffing processes encourage, or at least permit, the dissemination of information and influence via interpersonal social ties. The chapter reviews the information benefits and costs associated with interpersonal recruiting sources, as well as constraints surrounding their use. These considerations imply that such methods will be used more frequently in recruiting at certain types of workplaces, and for certain types of positions and occupations. Many arguments set forth on behalf of network recruitment rest on the presumably superior quality of information that flows through interpersonal ties. Interpersonal skills and the capacity to operate within networks are vital in such systems; such employers should, therefore, have relatively high needs for information when making staffing decisions.
