I've never gotten a job from someone I know. I've heard it my whole life but I've always went in solo to a number of jobs big and small. In fact, I personally find it kind of not respectable in some weird way (leaning on others for something I naively still hold onto as a merit-based system. People that break this value break what makes the system good), but I'm obviously biased from having always gone into an interview knowing only myself and what I know.