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The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether young people’s peer networks can be an asset in finding employment during the transition from school to work. It examines whether peer networks size and peers’ self-efficacy regarding their own job search are associated with job seekers’ career-relevant behaviors and outcomes, i.e., the number of applications completed and the number of job offers received.

Associations between job seekers’ peer networks and their job search behaviors and outcomes were investigated during their final year of vocational training. Sociometric measures were used to assess young people’s peer network size. Sociometric and self-report measures were used to establish the characteristics of the peers that comprise each job seekers’ network, resulting in the overall self-efficacy across each job seekers’ network.

The results show that peers’ efficacy beliefs are positively associated with young people’s engagement in job search activities (i.e. a greater number of applications completed) and indirectly associated with their job search outcomes (i.e. a greater number of job offers, which are mediated by the number of applications) that are independent of the peer network size.

The results underline that although peers might not provide instrumental support, encouraging interactions with (efficacious) peers may nonetheless be beneficial to young job seekers. Methodologically, the results demonstrate that the operationalization of self-efficacy as a network characteristic might provide us with valuable insights into the characteristics that turn social networks into beneficial social resources.

Taking a network approach, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the social antecedents of work-related engagement and exhaustion in a sample of Dutch healthcare workers, examining how employees’ structural position in the team (i.e. their centrality in the network) is associated with their engagement and exhaustion. Distinctions are made between instrumental networks (i.e. structural dependencies) and expressive networks (i.e. emotional connectedness through friendships).

Associations between job characteristics (quantitative demands, emotional demands and influence) and employees’ centrality in the instrumental and expressive networks at work with their self-reported engagement and exhaustion were examined. Network centrality was assessed though a sociometric survey by the total number of nominations each employee received (in-degree centrality) or gave (out-degree centrality) and for both networks separately.

The results show that whereas job characteristics but not network centrality were associated with exhaustion, network centrality in the expressive network but not job characteristics was associated with engagement. In-degree centrality (being nominated by many co-workers as a friend) was positively associated with engagement, whereas out-degree centrality (nominating many co-workers as a friend) was negatively associated with engagement.

The results support recent findings concerning more multifaceted antecedents of engagement and exhaustion, and underline the importance considering social network characteristics in investigations of work engagement. On a methodological level, the differing results for in-degree and out-degree centrality underline the importance of not only relying on self-reported social relationships but to also capture other-reported data.