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Comment by lprubin | Hacker News Reader

Nepotism can be your friend. Meet people through meetups, open source projects, conferences, non-profit volunteer work, etc. When people know and respect you already and you have an internal champion, the interview process often is much smoother. You'll be more confortable too when you know them. You might even bypass some of the process as well.

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I think the word "networking" (not usually a negative) would fit better than "nepotism" (almost always seen as a negative) here. Hiring your friends - ahead of other candidates who might be better qualified - might well be considered nepotism, but going out of your way to make friends with people in the hope that they might hire you probably isn't nepotism as most people would understand it.

Yeah, I agree on this use of the word. "Nepotism" implies getting the job through a connection regardless of anything else, but networking implies getting a job through a connection that is a source of trust of their qualifications.

The problem is that "networking" as a term has been diluted to mean "introduce yourself to powerful strangers" as opposed to "build a network of people in your industry that respect you".

With a good network, you can find a job. With good networking, you have a nice Rolodex without much influence.

Generally, nepotism refers to giving jobs or special treatment to people in your family. This is a good tactic but it requires having somebody else in your family working at a company that you are interested. This might not be possible.

You are referring to networking. This is very important and can definitely help you land a job.

Referrals can be a good source of talent, but nepotism has a very destructive effect at a large since it denies opportunities to talent that deserves them.

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