The Road to a Friend’s House is Never Long

We all have friends who date back years. Some of these friendships are still active. Some pick up right where we left off, regardless of the distance of years or miles. Some simply fade away, despite this era of social media. We value those friends with whom we easily connect…friends who immediately sustain our attention, even when separated by time, contact or geography. As soon as we are nudged by a shared memory, the immediacy of friendship returns. It is that natural connection that quickly closes the gap; not the brilliance of the approach, whether made by letter, text, email or phone. 

Counter that with the passing acquaintance who we generously try to assist. Seldom do we entertain establishing a sudden, deep connection when approached by a stranger, or by an out-of-the-blue call from a "friend of a friend", or a "contact of a contact.” These fleeting relationships are rarely reciprocal and they quickly run dry.

Such is the road taken in the far too common social contact management tool referred to as "networking.” Unlike networking, making new friends doesn’t require a person to take a training session or study the process in order to advance relationships.  

Even the most introverted personalities are able to cement strong bonds with friends. But when a well-meaning adviser recommends that the introvert (or even the confident person) "network", there is commonly a natural avoidance reaction (as in “I hate networking”). This is for good reason. 

While the road is never long to a friend’s house, most of us are clearly uncomfortable imposing upon strangers. The common aversion to networking is not so much a matter of having a challenged social temperament or tentative interpersonal skills, as much as it is a natural instinct to ask friends rather than strangers for help.

Too often, the well-meaning imparter of "Networking Lore 101" articulates a number of steps in a process that all involve things to do, rather than simply sharing the person that you are.  A tension is easily created by stressing volume and speed, rather than by encouraging relationship building/friend making.  The mechanical networker can come across as desperate, rather than as a confident colleague, both to strangers and to friends.

When people encounter someone who clearly feels uncomfortable (as too often is the case with the unfamiliar networker), they may hesitate before responding, for fear the networker may stumble. Too many networking tools backfire, when a friendly gesture was all that was needed.   

We know instinctively how to build friendships. We don't need to be coached, even if we are a bit introverted. We know that when you offer to help a person they usually are ready to help you right back. But if you ask to "use” people to get contacts, people will most likely defer.

Being yourself works better than using a script. By modeling your character when introduced, you present yourself as you are. Healthy people are ready to bond with that friendly you. They easily lend a hand, based upon what they learn of your character, not from your practiced networking methods.

“Every man’s work is always a portrait of himself.”

Samuel Butler

Unconventional Advice for Career Managers

“Get out there and network,” is well-meaning cheerleading that’s often bestowed on job seekers.

The concept of networking is just one example of conventional wisdom directed at meeting immediate needs. This advice is typically aimed at the seeker who wants a fish rather than a fishing guide. It fits for someone who unfortunately favors a work life in safe waters rather than in the bold oceans of unmet opportunities.

Go ahead and take the “quick fix” route if you are just seeking a job. If you’d rather manage your career than seek a job, I’ve got four unconventional pieces of advice to help you reframe this concept:

Don’t Network.
As an executive selection consultant, my business is all about making friends and establishing trust so that we can openly discuss client needs. While some may call this “networking”, I beg to differ. I call it “friend building." There is far too much “palms up” behavior in networking. These are actions you would never use with someone you know well.  Instead, people managing their careers engage friends naturally. The good news is that you know how to do this. There’s no need to consult a book or attend a seminar to learn how to cultivate comfortable friendships. It comes naturally. Keep this in mind the next time someone tells you to network: Friends refer friends, but are slow to refer stranger networkers.

Don’t Interview.
Job seekers consider interviews to be exceptional, uncomfortable and out-of-the ordinary challenges.  These individuals presume that they will be judged (and seldom positively), rather than welcomed. Ironically, these uncomfortable folks may be the same people who normally function very well in other business meetings, whether they are intended for collaborative analysis, joint problem solving or for all kinds of other routine job-related activities. 

In contrast, career managers are comfortable auditioning their “on-the-job” behavior.  When meeting new people they assume they are already desired team members – valued colleagues – and they treat everyone in a positive way. Even if the ultimate decision is not to work together they will have made new friends. Career managers prefer auditions where they “show their stuff” rather than interviews where they are judged.

Don’t look for job openings.
Job openings have rigidly pre-ordained specifications (often inaccurate in predicting successful on-the-job performance), multiple candidates, formal screening processes, etc. But when career managers are managing their futures they can be introduced to hiring executives well in advance of approvals or announcements of criteria-defining openings.

Career managers directly approach the organizations that are expected to need them. Sometimes through an introduction, they might very well discover receptive executives determined to build a solution around them and their desired career paths, at a time when a decision to recruit was only a vague prospect.

Avoid cold-calling recruiters.
There are many value-added benefits associated with an investment in a recruiter’s services; yet not all employers exclusively use these services as their first step.  Career managers are better off meeting, calling or writing recruiters because their target employers have referred them on to the recruiter. Approaching recruiters when they do not have a correlating search in progress dilutes career managers’ activities.  People are better off meeting their potential employers through their own initiative rather than by hoping for a broker to represent them.

Playing by the typical rules can work for job seekers. For those who’d prefer to convert their job search into career management, I’d suggest reframing this conventional wisdom.

*photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net