In Spain, without connections your CV counts for nothing

Without connections, your CV counts for nothing: jobs and housing are inherited too

Lacking a social circle isn't just a problem for Saturday night: it is a first-rate economic drag. The comparison between identical CVs and unequal outcomes no longer holds up once the word "contacts" enters the picture. Anyone without a crew, a circle or a godfather loses out emotionally, but above all in the mundane things: jobs, housing and access to credit.

With equal abilities, the one who knows how to handle bosses and has "spark" stays; the one who does the job, keeps quiet and doesn't charm anyone is out. It's the law of the clique transplanted to the workplace, public or private. The bluntest version cites someone earning 25,000 euros net a month for being daddy's daughter. Meritocracy, in that story, is a manual nobody applies.

The complaint often starts in the emotional realm — colleagues less gifted but settled in little groups — and drifts toward what really matters: networks also move housing prices and job stability. Some answer that between bad company and solitude, the second is better, but that choice carries a market price few can afford.

The conclusion reads like a verdict: nobody cares about you if you have no network. As long as social capital is handed down like an inheritance, equality of opportunity will remain the most expensive of euphemisms. One might predict, with reservations, that "connections" will beat merit in the end; the unsettling part is that nobody is in a hurry to change it.