In reply to wae :
Yep. I know a big reason I have my current gig is, now a good friend, a guy I met at my first Tech Writing job. Years ago when I was looking, he wrote me a recommendation on LinkedIN then when the manager at my current place (my friend has since moved on) saw that he had given me a recommendation and asked him to reach out to see if I would be interested.
I know that helped me get my foot in the door and likely gave me a nice advantage against the other 12 or so people who had made it past the initial interview with in-house recruiter.
