Plus One to Help Close the Social Capital Gap

Like many professionals, I get asked to do informational interviews quite frequently. I work in the social impact space so there is always a spike in the new year, when people return to the workplace wanting to ensure what they do matters. I benefited greatly from these when I was job searching so I feel compelled to pay it forward. 

This year, I decided to track who was reaching out and how they were contacting me. In January, I received 17 informational interview requests and this is what they looked like:

• 9/17 were first degree connections; the rest were 2nd
• All but 2 were women
• Each was from a similar socio-economic and educational background as me.
• And 100% were white.

I was appalled.

LinkedIn’s vision is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. The social impact team that I lead focuses specifically on those not born into opportunity and lack access to networks, or social capital. It has become increasingly clear to me that if you are not born into a family or community that has access to these network, the barriers to opportunity are often insurmountable.

Today, I am committing to ensuring that I do as many informational interviews with individuals outside my network and from diverse backgrounds, as I do with individuals who are in my network and have similar backgrounds to me. I am going to call it a commitment to “+1” which is a concept that John Gomperts, the CEO of America’s Promise shared with me last year. He had a daughter who was about to graduate from college and John was spending a lot of his social capital helping her find a job – as any good parent would. He was struck that if he and millions of other parents with strong networks committed to helping one additional student, we could help close the social capital gap in our country.

For those of you who want to join me in this commitment and need ideas on how to expand your network, check out the more than 5,000 mentor opportunities on our platform and find an opportunity that speaks to you. Unfortunately, the individuals who would benefit from your social capital the most, don’t currently have access to you – so it will require you to make the first move.