The system is broken on both ends at the same time.
This is not your fault. And you’re not imagining it.
Skip to the full diagnosisTwo doses. Take whichever works for you.
The Short Version
Want to see the TLDR version? Click below. No strings attached.
Download the Quick GuideThe Full Playbook
The detailed program approach. Scenarios, scripts, how to handle curveballs. The whole thing. All we ask is for an email so we can reach out with updates. No spam, no selling.
Why are we asking for your email? Straight answer: we don’t really have a plan. Mostly because this might turn into something where we’d want to share updates — a new resource, a story worth reading, something useful. To be clear: we’re a couple of middle-aged volunteers who saw something broken and wanted to try to make it slightly better. No monetization plans. No newsletter you didn’t ask for. If you’d rather skip the email, just take the short version above — we genuinely hope it helps.
We are parents of college-aged kids, business execs hiring at our firms, college professors, concerned citizens thinking about how to help a generation of grads who have had to navigate the turmoil of Covid, GenAI, remote work, and more. We’ve helped dozens of kids land that first conversation through this approach. None of them got handed anything beyond the intro. This is a humble, tested reflection on what worked. Not a guarantee, but hopefully a boost.
Job searching as a recent grad right now is genuinely brutal. Not “tough market” brutal. Structurally broken brutal.
The job you applied for probably doesn’t exist. The company posted it to convince the market they’re healthy. The portal buried your resume before a human ever saw it. Four thousand people applied in the same 48 hours, half of them automated scripts. And 80% of openings are never posted publicly — or they’re posted because companies are required to, when they already have a candidate in the works.
On their side: companies are drowning. A single posting generates thousands of robo-applications with no reliable way to surface what they’re actually looking for. Professional “candidates” apply for remote jobs and then a completely different person shows up on day one saying, “Sorry, my camera isn’t working.”
The standard playbook — find a posting, apply, wait — is a dead end. Structurally.
A playbook exists. Experienced professionals have been quietly using it to help young people navigate exactly this. It works. There’s no good reason it should be a secret.
Using personal connections to get a foot in the door sounds a lot like the old boys network. Mom and dad call their college roommate, junior gets hired. That system is real, it always worked, and it was always unfair to people who didn’t have those connections built in.
So is Nepworking just that, with a facelift?
No. Here’s the distinction: the old boys network is a secret. This is a playbook.
The old boys network worked because it was opaque. Insiders knew the game existed; outsiders didn’t. Nepworking does the opposite — surfaces the mechanism, names it, and hands it to anyone willing to use it. A first-generation college student who cold-emails three alumni connections at a target company is running the exact same play as the legacy kid whose mom plays tennis with the CEO.
There’s a second difference. The old boys network substituted network for merit. A handshake got unqualified people into actual jobs. Nepworking cuts through the noise of a broken system to connect real candidates with real jobs. The intro gets you past the portal, past the fake postings, past the pile of bot applications. It puts a human face on your resume. That’s the whole job. You close it yourself.
Fair? No. People with larger, more connected networks will always have an easier time here. We’re not pretending otherwise. But pretending the job board works, watching candidates throw spaghetti at an algorithmic wall — that helps no one.
A quick word about scope.
This isn’t a movement. It won’t fix hiring or cure inequality in the labor market.
What it might do is get you in the room. What happens after that is entirely on you.
This is a humble, considered, tested reflection on what worked. Not a guarantee. Not a program. Just: this worked, here’s how, don’t be embarrassed to try it.
We’re all hustling to figure this out. You should be too.
If you’re an experienced professional reading this:
You already know how this works. You’ve probably already done a version of it for someone you know.
The ask: be proactive. Don’t wait for a parent to call in a favor. Look at the young people in your orbit — your company’s interns, kids of acquaintances, the recent grad who cold-emails you because they did the research and found your name. Reach out first. Offer the intro before someone has to ask.
Push your circle outward. The most valuable thing you can do isn’t connecting your own kids — it’s extending the same courtesy to someone who doesn’t have a parent in the industry.
One introduction. Three a year. One email, thirty minutes. For the person on the other end, it can change everything.
Did Nepworking work for you? Are you out there making introductions?
Stories post anonymously. No names. No identifying details. Just the truth about how hiring actually works, from the people living it.
The job market will sort itself out eventually. Markets always do. Eventually doesn’t help you right now.
Stop clicking on postings. Pick a company — or five — that you actually want to work for. Research them. Find the name of the person doing the hiring. Then find who in your network — two or three connections out if you have to — can make an introduction.
Ask explicitly. “Can you give me a Nepworking intro?” They’ll know what you mean.