I think everyone in our firm has been hired because they knew someone at the company. If you have a friend at a company you want to work for, send them the resume and have them give it to the person in charge of hiring that position. If you are hired and you work out, there is usually a bonus paid to the employee for the referral. At least that's the way it works at our firm.
Our mail room and file rooms are filled with people who all went to school together or who knew each other before they were hired. Generally we only hire attorneys that someone in the firm knows personally and can vouch for them. Then when that person is hired, the attorney who made the referral gets a big bonus if they are still with the company after 6 months.
The market is basically closed to people who don't know anyone at the job they are applying for. The only exception are those employers who are desperate to find people to work for them and as a general rule, if they are desperate to find employees, it is because they are impossible to work with.
Time to rebuild my network.
And the woman in the article would have a better chance at knowing people in companies that are hiring if she spend several hours a day volunteering or hanging out with groups of people, instead of watching TV in her living room.