If you are aspiring for that right job in that great company, with just the right designation and bells and whistles you wanted, then the best way ahead is to try to get that job with your own merit. In case you know people who work there, the biggest mistake would be to ask them to put in a word for you. Here's why.
When you apply for the post, chances are, you may not know the interviewer or your prospective boss. The boss may be the interviewer in most cases. And the boss always wants control of the team, new people, processes and stuff that happen in his team. Now let’s assume you know a senior person in the company, and expect that person to influence the interviewer. If the influence works, then the interviewer loses control of the selection process.
That's what humans don’t like- loss of control; especially the hard-working ones who become bosses because of their own hard work and merit. Hard-working people hate nepotism, by and large. In time, they start hating people who get jobs through contacts only.
Now let's imagine you get the job through influence. Expectations are high, and let’s face it, we are all human and we goof up on simple things. When you do, everyone points at the 'moron' for hiring this idiot! That's when everyone rather wash their hands off the 'poor performer' because past performance was not the factor for selecting the candidate, nepotism was. In time, your abilities and work may be questionable. Even if you are slogging it out, it may be perceived as a show, or just a bad worker putting in more hours to do what a competent person would have finished faster. That's where the damage happens. Whatever you do gets discounted and you become known as someone who got in through pull.
A candidate who comes in without any influence on the interviewer may stand a better chance at getting the job, earning the boss's respect and tolerance for mistakes and room for showing potential. Even if you are the right candidate and the interviewer likes you, do NOT mention who you know in the company, especially higher up. Do that later when you get the job!
Just in case you feel that nepotism helps and that's how you got your job, then your company most probably has a culture of hiring based on relationships and not performance as the main criteria. In that case, you may end up working with a lot of nincompoops, and wonder which idiot hired them. It could be the same guy who hired you in the first place.
