Usually colleges have their own guidelines when it comes to college essay for admission or personal statements. It depends on what the actual college requires.
It makes the networks of the people we know visible. LinkedIn shows us our second and third degree networks and the paths towards them. LinkedIn makes this visible. Frustration! You define the HR Manager as the person who can help you best reaching your goal (a job, a contract or expertise). Then you use LinkedIn and do a search with “HR Manager, Coca Cola, and your country”. You didn’t know this because Coca Cola never has come up in your conversations.