It’s reported that 85% of job openings are filled through referral. This means your network is a critical factor when it comes to advancing your career. Yet, for so many job seekers, networking is one of the scariest aspects of the career process.
Why does it induce such fear? From my experience, it boils down to how networking has traditionally been viewed from a career perspective - to schmooze when you need a job. This approach treats other human beings as a means to an end, a way to gain favor. And since for most people it feels icky to use others for their own gain, they resist networking.
If this is networking, I would rather mindlessly watch Netflix than interact with others too.
Fortunately, it’s not. You see, the reason networking is emphasized ad nauseam is because statistics prove that most jobs come through a person's network. What many overlook, though, is that the contacts through which these jobs came in most instances were not people job seekers were using to get a job but those with whom they already had an established connection. When networking is done right, it’s about connecting with people from a genuine place. A secondary effect is that the people in your network look out for your best interests because of how you treat them and how they view you
Simply put, networking is creating and developing relationships. You already know how to do that if you have friends, people you care about and share common interests with by being yourself. When it feels difficult, it's usually because you’re forcing a connection by having a self-serving agenda and compromising your values to get an outcome.
Every job I’ve held in my career was the result of networking. But it never felt like a sleazy activity where I was reaching out to random strangers to ask for a job. In fact, my contacts reached out to me because we were friends, they were confident in my ability, and they knew it was a fit. My internships while I was a student at Baruch came through my professors and peers, where we already had friendly relationships built on trust and credibility. I see students bypass these low hanging fruits to reach for the top branch and fail over and over because they're single-focused. As a result, they form the belief that networking is hard and leads to rejection, avoiding it altogether.
That belief is not true. Networking is an ongoing process without an end point, where you nurture relationships which resonate with you. It requires considering the needs of others rather than only viewing the world through your agenda of getting a job. An agenda minimizes others, which backfires when the other person feels unseen and reduced to an object for your gain. Think of your reaction when you feel used by someone. It's obvious, right? You move away from that person. Why would it be any different in the career process?
While networking is the big buzzword, all it means is that investing in relationships plays an important role in getting where you want to go. This is why building connections is a skill which you cannot overlook. And how do you do this on the regular? By relating to others: looking for commonalities to bond over, by taking a genuine interest in their needs, by offering value, by being curious, and by expressing sincere appreciation when you feel moved by the actions of someone.This also means being clear about your boundaries and values when it comes to your relationships.
Networking can be applied to anyone - from the stranger waiting with you for the elevator to the CEO of a Fortune 100 company you meet at a conference. It’s about seeing and validating other human beings regardless of whether or not they can do something for you. You never know from which of these connections the next job opportunity is going to come, even though that's not the point.
In the end, networking is never about applying a 5-step robotic formula that's disingenuous. It’s about who you're being in any given moment. Are you open? Are you resourceful? Are you appreciative? When you take this approach, you’ll start to see every human being as an opportunity to become curious and add value (in your control) rather than getting them to do something for you (out of your control), which introduces the fear of rejection. It is this fear that paralyzes most job seekers and keeps them from advancing in their career. The fear is only there, though, because of how you’re approaching networking. You can easily change that by dropping the agenda and broaden your scope to include others.
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