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Comment by gbrindisi | Hacker News Reader

> the employers don’t ask “what you are able to do?”, instead of “what are your credentials/studies”.

I think this is cultural.

Italian culture is hierarchical and trust is built upon relationships, you either need the authority of a good cv or a good network to reap opportunities. (This is quite common in southern europe)

Northern europeans, americans etc are more egalitarian and have a task based approach to build trust, and value ones worth accordingly.

(Of course it’s not always as black and white)

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I think this is universal. I read the story in a different light: it's all about your social graph and who you know.

This is where I see most of the value from college or school, building up your social graph of people in your approximate industry.

Want to be successful? Connect in a meaningful way with more people. Your opportunities will multiply.

Don't know how to do that? There's an easy shortcut: publish something! Give a talk, write a blog, teach a class. Find those opportunities where you can engage with many folks at once (not just 1:1, that doesn't scale as fast).

It depends on what motivates people from your network to give you an opportunity.

If their motivation is “I know that this guy is good for sure, I don't have to take chances with random people who answer the job as”, it is still merit based, and they're acting in the best interest of the company. However, they could also give a job to somebody they know just to have their favor, or to get more people into the company they they could rely on in internal politics. In this case, this is not based on merit, and they're effectively defrauding the company, acting against its interest.

Personally, I've mostly encountered first type of networking in USA and Northern Europe and mostly second type elsewhere. Israel is weirdly split between Hi-Tech and everything else, following first and second type respectively.

Having worked in both Canada and USA, I feel it's the same in US "what you are able to do?" and Canada “what are your credentials/studies”.

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