A large body of sociological literature has been accumulated regarding how social networks or social capital affect individual job outcomes in the labor market. Lin (2001) has classified relevant studies into three strands. The first strand, labeled “using contacts”, focuses on the effect of using social ties as compared to not using them. The second strand, labeled “accessible contacts”, addresses the role of the overall quantity or quality of resources embedded in one’s ego-centric networks. The third strand deals with the effects of “mobilized social capital” often measured by contact resources (i.e., resources of a specific contact who has offered substantial help in the job search). Central to the third strand of research is Lin’s (1999) social resource theory, which argues that the better, or the higherquantity of social capitalthatisused,the better job outcomes will be. However, replicating and extending the 1970 Detroit Area Study (DAS) by Marsden and Hurlbert (1988), Mouw (2003) prominently challenged the social resource theory by showing that once homophily (e.g., the similarity between the occupations of the job seeker and the contact) is considered, the role of contact prestige in status attainment becomes insignificant.1 Since previous empirical studies supporting Lin’s theory had not considered the presence of homophily, the estimated role of contact resources is very likely to be spurious and due to selection effects. To defend the social resource theory, Lin and Ao (2008) aptly pointed out that Mouw (2003) had erroneously coded the key variable of occupational homophily, or “same-occupation”. In particular, the comparison between the contact’s job and the respondent’s current job “cannot reflect social influence (e.g., a respondent approaching the contact for help in the labor market) that must precede the current position of the respondent” (Lin et al., 2013:26; emphasize by authors). Taking into account the “correctly” specified occupational homophily – i.e., to compare the respondent’s previous job and the contact’s job – recent studies have lent support to social resource theory (Lin and Ao, 2008; Son and Lin, 2012; Son, 2013; Lin et al., 2013; Bian et al., 2015). Although the debate has lasted for more than a decade, two issues raised by Mouw (2003) still deserve further investigation. First, the similarity of one’s “current job” and the contact’s job may affect the role of social capital, since “inside” job-leads can be more productive than “outside” job-leads, especially in a modern labor market like the US, where job information matters for job searches. In other words, the role of social capital may be moderated by occupational homophily and depend on particular labor market contexts.