It's not the same job. I've worked at companies where employees are paid bounties for finding good candidates for future employment, regardless of whether there's an open position. Every company I've worked at, we've hired people with no positions advertised anywhere. Of the four "real" post-college jobs I held, only one of them existed before I popped up as a candidate. I know two people who work at SpaceX and one person who works for SpaceX. The two who work at were at Blue Origin and decided they wanted to head south; the one who works for was a recommendation from a friend who was too busy for the gig. None of them interviewed.If you are using your connections to get the same job you might have gotten by padding your resume or memorizing the tech interview quiz, that's not going around the corner, that's more like getting pulled through the little door.