What You Know or Who You Know? Occupation-specific work experience and job matching through social networks

While work experience is generally seen as an indicator of human capital, it may also reflect the accumulation of social capital. This study examines how work experience facilitates informal access to employment—that is, being matched with a new employer through an informal search or informal recruitment through the non-search process (without engaging in a job search). Results from fixed effects regression on panel data from the NLSY show that experience is related to informal entry into new jobs, though in a very specific way. The odds of being informally recruited into a new job improve as work experience in related occupations rises, but this relationship holds only among men. These findings highlight the social benefits of occupation-specific work experience that accrue to men but not to women, suggesting an alternative explanation for the gender disparity in wage returns to experience.

► Examines how different types of work experience affect informal job matching. ► Increased experience in closely related occupations facilitates informal job changes. ► Experience only matters for men and only for informal recruitment (not searching). ► The result suggests that experience fosters connections as well as skills. ► The social benefits of experience do not accrue to women as they do for men.