The Single Most Important Way to Boost Your Career is to Build Your Network

Discover what excites you, meet inspiring and fascinating people, and jump the line when you are ready to make your next career move. Here's how to get started.

Photo by youssef naddam on Unsplash

I didn’t sleep and barely ate for days. My right eye was starting to twitch. I had retreated from friends and family.

I wasn’t dying. I wasn’t being threatened. I hadn’t committed a crime.

I was interviewing for a summer college internship.

I’m embarrassed now as I think back on how much I held myself hostage. Interviewing was so traumatizing I chose not to interview at all in my senior year and simply accepted the ill-fitting role offered to me by my summer employer.

And yet, those were the good days.

When humans reviewed your application — your cover letter, your resume. When a person sat across from you to meet with you and ask you questions. They may not have cared about your answers (I know some of my interviewers didn’t), but they showed up.

Some even shared more about the company or the role and answered your questions at the end of the interview.

Today, more and more companies rely upon technology to scale their interview process and take humans out of the equation. Humans are inefficient, biased, and expensive. And they generally work for less than 24 hours a day.

Meanwhile, technology can work around the clock, process infinitely more applications, and make assessments more consistently (if not necessarily in a less biased way).

I’m not for or against technology. But I am for creating a process that results in the best outcomes for the people involved. Technology, unfortunately, helps companies more than job seekers.

Hiring is becoming more dehumanized.

A client recently applied for a senior role and made it into the first round where she had to send a video recording of her answers to 3 questions.

Yes, you saw that correctly, there was no person from the company involved. They only wanted a video recording.

It was never easy to put yourself out there — to market yourself for a role, but at least you were able to meet a person along the journey. You were able to ask them questions, get a vibe for the organization’s culture, and hear nuances in their replies to your questions.

That is all changing. And AI will only accelerate it.

There is one way to re-humanize the job search experience and make it more effective.

Networking.

I know, I know… networking is such a distasteful word.

It reeks of neediness and used car salesmanship.

And yet, it is the secret to how the elite secure jobs for themselves and their family members.

• It’s how you find out about what sectors and companies are growing the fastest and which ones are struggling.

• It’s how you get insider intel about a company’s culture and who to work for and who to avoid.

• It’s how you learn about what jobs and industries you might want to pursue and what might not be a great fit for you

• It’s how you build relationships that will refer you to job opportunities.

• It’s how you connect with hiring leaders who will think of you when they next open a role that might be a fit.

It is how I was able to make 5 sector shifts with relative ease (investment banking to technology to media to e-commerce to social impact to solopreneur).

I met with people I didn’t know and I stayed connected to the people I did know. I leveraged the positive impression I made when I worked with people to secure a position when they moved to their next opportunity. It was lower risk for them, and lower risk for me. For one role, I cultivated the relationship over 4 years through breakfasts and coffees every 6 months until a position opened up that was a good fit.

Without a network, you are relying upon “the system” to work for you. But “the system” isn’t designed to work for you.

The system is designed to work best for those who have the most power. Generally speaking, that isn’t you.

Some would say that mastering networking is the only way to make the system work for you.

In Designing Your Life Bill Burnett and Dave Evans describe networking as wayfinding, which I love. What if instead of seeing networking conversations as a moment to sell yourself, you saw it as a moment to gather information? Would that change how you resist and prioritize networking? You likely wouldn’t hesitate to ask someone in the street for help if you were having trouble locating an address, why not view your career search in the same way. Why not ask for directions?

Networking clicked for me when I reframed networking as conversations.

Great networking = great conversations

As someone who had such a tremendous fear of interviews, you would imagine that I wasn’t too keen on networking.

I had a healthy dose of trepidation, but the key was to reframe the activity in my mind. If you stick to the core principles of a great conversation — the give and take and the value exchange that is needed for both parties — setting up and executing a great networking meeting is not difficult. You just need to be attuned as to why someone might want to engage with you and to be fully present in the dialogue.

I drew up a very simple process for networking. If, as you read it, you say, “Duh?!?” — That’s how I designed it. There are a million reasons not to do it. You have to make the process super easy otherwise, you won’t do it!

1. Build a list of people to reach out to

   1. People you know and trust

   2. People you know but perhaps not that well

   3. People you don’t know, but you admire their accomplishments, thinking, company, sector or role

2. Build an outreach strategy

   1. Clean up your LinkedIn profile

   2. Create a template or for outreach based on the types of people and conversations you’re seeking to have. Don’t over complicate it — keep it brief and to the point

      • Add some personalization

      • Highlight what impresses/interests you

      • Ask for some time

3. Outline your conversation

   1. Opening (your elevator pitch) - Don’t worry if you don’t know

   2. Questions you want to ask - Prioritize what matters most with a softball entry to start

   3. Closing points - Express gratitude and an ask to stay in touch

4. Post-conversation Follow-up Note

   1. Always send a thank you note

   2. So many interviewees now don’t even bother which I find appalling. How will stand out if you don’t even try

   3. Follow up is the same as follow through and as any good sports coach will tell you, you can’t hit the mark unless you follow through your swing (kick, punch, etc)

5. Set targets & track your progress

   1. Set aside time each week to manage your outreach and assess how you are doing

   2. Assume a 10% conversion rate, but that can go up or down based on how well you know the person, the time of year, and what’s happening in their work and lives

   3. More outreach than you think is needed, so plan to do follow ups every 1-2 weeks for a few weeks with those folks who don’t get back to you

6. Digest your learnings and iterate

   1. As you meet more people, you’ll form your view of what resonates with you, which people you want to prioritize for future contact

   2. Take the time to reflect on what you’re learning and then adjust your plan. If you find that one sector you thought was interesting, after four conversations feels less engaging, then adjust your outreach plan

It might take you only 10 conversations to get clear and build relationships that help you find the next opportunity, but it also might take you 200. Don’t assume what you’ll need. Instead, plan to make this a part of your weekly and monthly activities.

View networking as foundational to your career long-term, not simply as a short-term priority and you’ll have the mindset you need to be resilient and to truly benefit from these conversations.

Key Takeaways

• Technology is changing the hiring experience and making it more difficult to leverage human connection for the job seeker

• The solution is to rev up your networking to help you find what excites and who might help you get there

• Think of networking meetings as a conversations to remove the stigma and the “ick” factor

• Follow a simple process to make networking feel doable:

  • Build a list

  • Create an outreach plan

  • Outline your conversation

  • Follow up

  • Set targets, reflect on your learnings, and adjust your approach

• Integrate networking as a long-term habit, not a one-time effort

Like any new behavior or habit, don’t be too hard on yourself if you are struggling to get started. Celebrate each step you take and when you stumble, get back at it. You’ll make progress if you keep going.

Your Turn

Share in the Comments below what networking strategies have worked best for you.

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A Note of Gratitude

As we near the year-end, I wanted to thank all of my subscribers for your support. I write these posts with you in mind — you are my inspiration and supporting you is what drives me every day.

If there are topics you want me to cover, please reply to my post or download the Substack app and direct message me your thoughts. I would welcome hearing from you and wish you a wonderful holiday season.

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