Not Working + Net Working = Back Working

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Not Working + Net Working = Back Working

by Paul Mullan on December 14th, 2009
25 Comments

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Here we go again another so called expert banging on about the value of networking and creating more hype about a strategy that doesn’t deliver. I know networking works and here is a recent example which prompted my article. A participant from my outplacement workshop emailed to say thanks and informed me that they offered my networking advice to their partner who secured two interviews through Facebook within 24 hours. So you are right when you believe networking doesn’t work and you can stop reading.

Why more jobseekers (or businesses) do not use networking?

Networking requires blind faith – We cannot see the opportunities which can make it difficult for us. Advertised jobs/opportunities appeal as they are tangible whereas proactive job search is difficult as we work in the dark. Most of us need to see before we can believe BUT networking requires us to believe before we can see.

Networking is hard work – Networking requires moving out of our comfort zone (lazy zone). Then there is rejection and knockbacks. Most pitch expectations too high and expect results too soon. We don’t land results and give up.

A few pointers that help me when networking …

You know what the say about ASS-U-ME – Everybody knows somebody no matter who they are or what they do. Back in 2004 my mother had a potential lead for me. I never asked her as I assumed she wouldn’t know anyone in the IFSC. Sorry mum! Ensure that you talk to everyone!!

I just called to say…. No not Stevie Wonder “I love you” More like “How are you?” Social Media makes networking more accessible and less daunting for many. We find it easier to engage online than face to face in a room full of strangers. Ensure you take online connections offline with a phone call or meeting. You will develop stronger relationships and access more information and value.

Give and thou shalt receive – I firmly believe in this one. Helping others and not expecting anything in return will enhance your networking. Most people fall into the trap that networking is all about them. Big mistake! Go out of your way to help others.

Stay on the radar – Many think networking is about phoning all their connections and telling them what they want and the sitting back. You need to stay on the radar as out of sight means out of mind. You need to continually engage your network and not rely on one of communication.

There is much more advice but I have over shot the runway with my word count Please feel free to add tips that work for you. And I love success stories. As I posted in Measurability Careers & Jobs Club – Reading success stories can inspire others to engage and network more.

Category: HR and recruitment

Tags: Job Hunting, Jobs, LinkedIn, networking, social media

The Author: Paul Mullan

Paul Mullan is an experienced career and outplacement professional with 14 years experience working within careers, outplacement and recruitment in the UK & Ireland. He is a former owner of Eden Recruitment and founder of career firm Measurability in 2006. Paul has delivered outplacement programmes for many leading organisations and ran graduate career workshops for leading third level institutions. He has worked with many individuals helping them define and achieve career goals through creative approaches to personal marketing and job hunting. Paul integrates traditional strategies with new Web 2.0 strategies to deliver optimum results. He is known for his up to date, creative and friendly approach to delivering career solutions. Paul is a recognised career professional regularly commenting on career related topics in the national media. He has acted as Career Doctor with Irish Independent and he is currently an online career expert with RecruitIreland. http://www.measurability.ie

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http://www.channelship.ie/ fred

Good post Paul. It’s true that most of the people don’t understand networking or maybe don’t have the patience. LinkedIn is a fantastic tool that brought me closer to the hundreds of people I met offline and a great way to keep in touch as well.
Like a LinkedIn ambassador y proactively asked very single person I met “if they were on LinkedIn” to stay connected. I’m surprised at the amount of people that were not or hadn’t even heard about it how now they’re using LinkedIn for enhance their networking efforts. Hope this online tool at least provides more confidence to keep on investing in real networking hours…
Anonymous

Fred

Thanks for the comments.

I agree with you that lack of patience can be a problem – The difficulty with networking is that you don’t see immediate results. Add to that the whole comfort zone issue.

P
Anonymous

I have another tip. See the value in every person you talk to. Some people go in wih a strategic approach, I will make three contacts etc. But I find that every single person I talk to is a help, whether it’s because hey know a useful resource, or they know other people, or, as you say, you can give them some useful information or resources.
Anonymous

Spot on Derbhile – this is a great point!!!!!

Your approach means that you can get a win out of every/most conversations. When we get some wins we believe that networking is adding value and this will encourage us to network more. Too many networkers place the bar too high and this means that if they don’t land an opportunity the conversation is a failure.

P
http://ie.linkedin.com/in/paulmullan
http://www.btbtraining.com/blog Niall Devitt

“Ensure you take online connections offline with a phone call or meeting” Key point Paul! The funny thing is the people who tell you that social networking is pointless are the same people who don’t do this.
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Aaron

Hi Paul, so are you going to do some networking with us this Friday in the Dublin Job Club? Last meeting of the year
Anonymous

Thanks Paul, very good article, as far as I can see the only way to get a job in this market is to look for the hidden opportunities as the advertised ones aren’t working so far!! Thanks again.

Wendy

http://ie.linkedin.com/in/wendydoyle
http://www.seefincoaching.com/blog Elaine Rogers

Great post Paul.
Networking is not as tangible as actively applying for a job, but is non the less just as important. Perseverance is key here, we need to invest the time and effort. It also gives us the chance to give something back to others in our networks also. I agree that meeting as many people offline is very important and a great way to quickly grow one’s professional network.
In terms of job-seeking, networking is a chance to tell people who you are and what you do, as well as making new connections and actively interacting with the professional world. Job hunting can be a very lonely way of life, so it’s important to get out there, invest the time (which there is more of if unemployed) and continue speaking with other professionals. It should be regarded as a long term strategy
Anonymous

@Niall – very true Niall. I too am guilty of this sometimes myself and need to continually push myself.

@Aaron – thanks for the comments – I will make it my New Year resolution to visit you in 2010. Let me know when you guys get going again. By the way Aaron’s Club is a good networking opportunity for jobseekers – heard some positive feedback!!

@Wendy – I agree with you BUT don’t turn off from the advertised jobs completely. Combination approach but I certainly would put a bit more focus on proactive strategies.

@Elaine – some very good points. Networking does give you the opportunity to get yourself out there and tell others who you are and what you do. It is an important point to remember that hiring decisions are made on more than just ability to the job and networking allows you to show the other important stuff.
http://www.channelship.ie/blog/ fred

Great post Sabina! welcome to Bloggertone
Social media is indeed just a set of tools. Twitter and Facebook in this case are simply the evolution of communication utensils that journalists and other professionals use… The experiment is creative but not a big deal.
http://www.btbtraining.com/blog Niall Devitt

Hi Sabina, welcome to Bloggertone, It’s great to have you on board This sounds like a really interesting experiment. I think Twitter has already been shown to be a useful and indeed reliable source of news during the aftermath of the Iranian elections. Questions that now remain are will the public invariably break and report the news going forward? and Is this a good or indeed a bad thing? In other words, will Joe Bloggs become the Journalist of the future? Thanks for raising some great questions, Niall
http://www.click2engage.com/ Sabina

Thank you, Fred! It feels great to be here!
There has been a lot of noise lately around the impact of social media tools on the future of journalism and there’s certainly going to be more excitement now, after the launch of the Apple tablet, with regards to the issue of print versus digital. It is a case of , as you well pointed out, an evolution of communication and what I hope is that it will encourage innovation of the traditional media, in order for this evolution to be passed on to the end consumer of media.
http://www.click2engage.com/ Sabina

Thank for having me here, Niall!
These are some very good questions indeed! I think we’ve only just scratched the surface of user involvement when it comes to social media. The possibilities are endless now that every individual with Internet access can, in fact, be a journalist. Social media has opened the door and there’s obviously no shortage of people who want in! On the one hand this could be a great thing as users can truly be active in the process value co-creation, on the other hand it’s impossible not to question how distorted will some of the information be?
Anonymous

Big subject! When we are deciding what to believe, the popular route is to seek out believable sources. So reputation is always a key factor. However, even reputable reporters (Joe Bloggs as well as Journalist of the Year) are drawing information from sources that themselves can be tainted and are sometimes straight hoaxes, as I discovered the other day on Twitter regarding an aspect of the Haiti situation. Equally, the influencers are often engaged in manipulation, so the ‘truth’ can be a total fiction that is believed by millions. I think we’ve seen plenty of that – remember WMDs etc… So, whoever is spreading the news, and whether they are using jouralistic channels or social media tools, can make it as ‘reliable’ or otherwise as they like. Social media tools simply help bolster their reputation (when they use it wisely) and extend their reach. We all crave honest reporting, but I don’t know how anyone can decide how that is possible, let alone deliver it. What do you think?
http://www.click2engage.com/ Sabina

This truly is a topic that hardly lends itself to an exhaustive discussion. And this is probably because the opinions each and every one of us have on this are inevitably either convergent or divergent, but more than likely subjective. This is also the word that describes news delivered/generated though social media tools. It’s been said that if you want to run a search on sentiment you should go on Twitter and if it’s facts you’re looking for do a search on Google. If we were to use this as our starting point we could say that honest reporting does exist, it’s just dependent on the perception of the person delivering it (this assuming that the news is not an absolute invention). And under these circumstances, the issue is whether or not anyone, be it a Twitter user or a journalist can truly be objective? Can someone really detach themselves from a situation and not put their own fingerprint on it? Or, perhaps, part of the beauty of reporting lies in this added perspective to which we can all contribute?
Anonymous

Sabina, I think this is a discussion that could fill up bloggertone’s available space! So many angles to talk about here. To be horribly pedantic about it, for instance: if we propose that honest reporting exists under the terms you mention, surely we’d have to take into account that our (more than likey) subjective opinions based on our perceptions drawn from our own experiences, exposure, prejudices and outlandish ideas around something that could also be a deliberate fiction, are all that we have to establish ‘honesty’. Seems a bit thin to me, and it kind of diminishes the value of the word. I guess that’s why Murdoch chose beautiful reporting, as he spent less time agonising over that question and more time exploiting the added perspective!

What do you think?

:0)
http://www.click2engage.com/ Sabina

I agree! It does diminish the value of the word. In the world of social media “citizen journalists” are not bound by the principles of journalism to report facts, not opinions, to verify facts and be transparent with regards to sources etc. Traditional journalism relies on an objective method to try and convey a fair, reliable and accurate account of their reporting, however that’s not to say that the journalists themselves are objective. And even if this is the foundation, any journalistic account is still open to further investigation, interpretation, criticism and debate. In a world where there are so many sources of information readers will pick and choose the news based on their interests and with so many sources to choose from each one will be treated with skepticism. And because of this, no matter how transparent and accurate they try to be media consumers will still believe an account is biased. Now, I’m obviously not a journalist and don’t assume to know the process in depth, but this is where I think this experiment will have the greatest challenge: whether a journalist can truly verify the accuracy and reliability of a source of information on Facebook and Twitter alone and deliver quality news.
Anonymous

Another thought. I am reading one of John Simpson’s books at the moment – you know, the BBC journalist. Here is a man with a vast knowledge of conflicts and politics around the world, who has, for over 40 years, placed himself in the centre of the action, often at great personal risk. Reading his book, it is clear that his personal take on things, which he is free to write in his own book, is very much more believable than the illusions and confusions weaved by the worlds press publicly. It’s a great pity, as here is a very humane, sincere and honest person who is contractually bound to tow the line and whose reports are massaged by others before they reach us – if they are chosen to be aired at all. So, even if he is on Twitter or Facebook, he cannot risk telling it how it is, even though he is better qualified than most in certain situations, and able to see round the spin and manipulation.
http://www.ivanwalsh.com Ivan Walsh

Hi Neil, nnA friend told me he tries to be there ‘before the fire starts’. In other words, he spends as much time with prospects before they are ready to buy and then, when things happen, he’s the one they usually turn to. nnRegards,nnIvannnn
Torihawthorne

Hi Niall, nThanks for the comment, its true they can be two different things. Sometimes what they want isn’t what they need and vise-versa but a good salesperson will find out and let the customer know without offending them and ultimately sell them the product they want and need. (if they have it) A good sales person shouldn’t be affraid of losing a sale if they don’t have the right product/service. The fact that they have put the customer in the right direction will bring the customer back to them or recommend them…
http://www.seefincoaching.com/blog Elaine Rogers

Customers always wonders to themselves – WIIFM (what’s in it for me?)nVender should ALWAYS ask themselves WIIFT (what’s in it for them?)nnBy knowing what a client/customer wants to buy, we know the right product/service to sell.nA sales person in 2011 needs to be much more than a seller of things, they need to be a SME (subject matter expert), a confidante, a coach, an advisor. It should get to the stage where the client involves the sales person in their decision making, referring back before any decisions are made.nnA match made in Heaven one may wonder, but I believe it works.nnGreat post, nothing like a Monday morning discussion about customers n
Torihawthorne

Thats SO true Elaine, we are so many things to our customers. A good Team/Sales Leader is all those things to their team too, if a sales person feels support in all those areas from above, they will in turn have the confidence to be what the customer needs…nnPeople think to be a great sales person you have to be able to talk.. You do, but you have to be a better listenernWe could chat about this forever nnThanks for your comment Elaine
http://www.tweakyourbiz.com Niall Devitt

I know this mightn’t be as relevant in B2C but I now don’t attempt to sell unless the prospect has a good grasp of what they need, if they are in denial or are unprepared to invest in the right way, I send them elsewhere, there are plenty of other companies that will take their money. I found that I was spending too much time with companies who were not yet ready to buy what they needed. In my opinion, the key in B2B sales at the mo is to ensure that you spend your time talking to prospects that are in a position to buy.
http://www.m4bmarketing.com Susan Oakes

Hi Tori,nnI agree with you and i do like the way you said that they are the ones with the money. Even if they are wrong in their mind they will always perceive they are right especially when businesses try and convince them otherwise.

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