May 2025

Published jointly for Work in Progress and Power at Work

Employers are increasingly using algorithms and digital devices to control workers. As a new Human Rights Watch report puts it, “Workers around the world are increasingly hired, compensated, disciplined, and fired by algorithms that can be opaque, error-prone, and discriminatory; their faces, office badge swipes, email exchanges, browsing histories, keystrokes, driving patterns, and rest times are scanned to monitor performance and productivity.”

My research shows how this “algorithmic management” does not only affect working conditions; it expands the capacity of employers to subvert the efforts of workers to organize for better treatment.

At this point it has become common knowledge: leveraging your social capital will help you on the job market. We hear it from scholars, who illustrate the benefits that job candidates get from referrals; from career counselors, who encourage us to reach out personal contacts at companies where we hope to work; and online, where we are relentlessly reminded to expand our professional networks to advance our careers. To get a job, it often seems, you have to know someone.

Yet leveraging connections during the job search is at odds with another widespread belief, that hiring should be meritocratic, based on candidates’ qualifications rather than their connections. This gives rise to a tension. On the one hand, we want to maximize our chances of getting the job by getting a foot in the door. On the other, we feel committed to the principle of meritocracy and concerned that using connections may shade into nepotism.