In the process of looking for work, job seekers who want to leverage their social connections confront a dilemma: on one hand, using connections increases access to good jobs; on the other hand, we generally believe that we should earn a job based on what we can do, rather than who we know. Using qualitative and experimental data from Spain, this research shows how people experience the tension between social capital and meritocracy—two conflicting logics governing the job search—and how they resolve this tension through a process of justification that we call situational alignment. By making sense of the alignment between the job seeker, the job, and the type of help that connection provide, people overcome their meritocratic concerns and justify using connections to gain an advantage in the job search.