Good News for Young Strivers: Networking Is Overrated

This is something that I wished I had understood way earlier in my career. Basically that cause and effect are often inverted when people talk about the network effect. People who do some thing well, or are passionate about, often will accumulate a network of others who are interested in that same thing. And because they know a bunch of people who are also interested in that thing, when they hit a roadblock or a problem they have people they can reach out to for help or insights.

What is hard is discovery which is to say that the greatest programmer in the world who sits in his shack and writes perfect code that is beautiful and functional, is invisible.

There is a joke about the guy who complains "I make no money at all from stocks." and the friend says "What stocks do you own?" and the complainer responds "Oh I don't own any stocks, have no use for them, I just want money from them."

Attention and focus is like 'money from stocks' if you share what you're doing and your understanding with people you give them some advantage and perhaps some new understanding. That advantage comes back in the form of referrals or opportunities that you were not present to see when the person you shared with recognizes an opportunity as something you would be interested in. It also allows you to be "discovered" two or three hops down the road when someone says "Oh I know someone who is interested in that ..."

Nowadays, when I get a chance to mentor younglings my main point is that networking is a HUGE part of success (other important point being not to waste time on a PhD, but that's another topic). As with any effort you have to learn how to do it, of course. Harassing people for their contact info, etc. is a networking anti pattern.

But thoughtfully targeted networking where you're able to identify a small number of people who have something of unique value to you, and then bring something of similar value to them, resulting in a potential mutually high-value collaboration, is not overrated.

Networking, in the sense of maintaining strong professional relationships and having a presence at professional events, creates a strong passive upwards pressure for someone who is talented. If you "spring to mind" as someone I can trust to "do X," or if you spring into the mind of the person I task with finding someone to "do X," then you are that much more likely to be offered the opportunity to "do X".

You may find the same kinds of "do X" opportunities through other means, but as X becomes increasingly specialized and requires more trust, networking becomes more and more important. For example, I can mass broadcast an ad for entry-level Java developers. I cannot do that to find a systems architect to design a high uptime, low latency, massive throughout web service. I'm likely to go to a short list for the latter and avoid interviews completely, if at all possible.

Obviously accomplishments are important. Accomplishment one of the foundations of a strong professional identity. Without evidence of your abilities, networking won't put you on anyone's short list. That's a catch-22, and you also need luck and the ability to inspire someone to take a chance on you to get your foot in the door. Both of those are improved dramatically by networking.

In every job I have, I try to grab lunch with people everyday so that I can talk to them and get to know them. I also try to regularly meet new people in my field and get to know them. I've found that to be extremely valuable.

However, I've found going to networking events to be an extreme waste of time. The people who go usually aren't the successful professionals, which is who I want to meet. I've found going for drinks with friends- and their friends- to be much more valuable.

This article opens with a strong claim and several distasteful examples of desperate behavior associated with networking. But I wouldn't consider those "networking" in the general sense of the word; rather they are one stunt-based manifestation of it. Contrary to the article's point, you do not need to abandon networking to focus on being so good that you're attention getting. The examples given - Bieber and Adele being "found" through raw wow factor - do not resemble the way that networking organically occurs in the real world, and are very dependent on luck. Bieber and Adele would still be impressive successes if they had networked for it, and indeed the article concedes that many successful startup founders had a pre-established network in addition to their skillsets.

I think there's too much baggage attached to the idea of networking. You don't want to try and network as though it is a high-pressure sales tactic. Instead, focus on developing social skills and charisma. You also don't need to wait until you are extraordinary to network with people. There's no guideline for networking because there doesn't need to be one, it arises organically if you talk with people who have the same interests. There's another principle I have found with regards to networking - it is better to prioritize network quantity instead of quality. You want a minimum "quality" per contact, for sure, but you will find that access to extremely high quality contacts emerges in your network once you've hit a critical mass of people you can email on a first name basis (for example). If you're constantly trying to "collect" high-impact contacts without bootstrapping your way towards it organically, you'll be more pressured to pull the inane antics the article talks about.

In other words, and for practical advice: people seriously overthink networking and these examples of e.g. pitching a VC at an open mic event are not examples of organic networking. Just talk to people for the sake of talking to people. I have had incredible opportunities come to me and met awesome people because I wrote insightful Hacker News or reddit comments. Whenever I can I try to email someone who is talking about something I'm interested in.

Really? If you're around unpleasant people, sure, but I at least have typically enjoyed meeting new people in the industry. "Networking" is just another word for "having a conversation."

The implication of this piece is unclear to me. Most people, by definition, are average and aren't going to suddenly pop out masterpiece whatevers that bring them fame and fortune. You'd think a little networking wouldn't hurt. It's better than staying at home and staring at the TV, right?

Tip for writers: if you can use the same data to just as reasonably arrive at the opposite conclusion - "we want to feel clean and presentable before impressing other people" - then don't present your vague conjecture as fact. The article started to lose me as soon as I read this part. It was like a red flag of bad journalism went up.

People who have something to show for themselves find networking easier than people who are faking it? Sure, I believe that, but that's hardly news.

Waiting for a music exec or manager to somehow hear your work is a terrible strategy. On average, if you wait around to be discovered, you'll be waiting a long time.

In music, networking is hugely important to being successful. Going to people's gigs, meeting others, and similar was hugely important for me to establish myself as a working musician when I moved across the country last year. But, effective networking is most necessary and productive in "gig" type economies.

In tech, meetups and such aren't always great networking opportunities because the way most technical people collaborate is in the work environment, and most people change jobs rarely. Contrast this with most musical relationships, where it's much easier to exchange information and call a new person for a gig, which happens many times per week usually.

I'm sensitive to this because early in my music career, I severely undervalued the value of networking, and watched many of my colleagues (all of whom were excellent at networking) get good gigs and opportunities. As soon as I realized I was undervaluing networking, I made a correction, and subsequently have had a much more satisfying life as a musician.

Writing it was the same. I posted the whole draft to my Facebook in chunks, and this improved it amazingly, because my friends, like yours, are querulous nerds, and my goodness a querulous nerd given permission to be as querulous as they like, well. But I'm 50, and I've spent a few decades accumulating hundreds of contacts who are smart people who are experts in things that I'm not. And I totally relied on them to make this not suck.

I'm a huge nerd. But even my beep-boop sysadmin day job is, frankly, 50% public relations and getting people to do stuff because they feel they should because I asked nicely. Networking.

When I started, I too was bereft of network. But my first IT job was courtesy ... networking! And my second. And my third.

tl;dr Do your damnedest to be a social supernode. Make sure you know everyone, such that if you don't then you'll know someone who does. And keep in touch with them. It'll pay off big down the line.

(I went through Facebook last week and visited the pages of every one of the 1000+ people I have friended, to say hi and see what they were up to. Don't trust The Algorithm to maintain your relationships.)

Networking is a system for making connections. Desirable connections are relatively rare. The pool of people networking is full of people trying to make desirable connections but has a small amount of people whom are desirable to network with. The more people there are "trying to network," the fewer desirable connections as a percentage of total connections there will be, assuming an even remotely chaotic coupling.

I've met a lot (a lot) of people who I would have no interest networking with. I'm sure for more valuable targets, the number is orders of magnitude higher.

Well yes, if you choose to. I wish the article could keep the focus of the positive effects that creating great things leads to, and not try to position it as an opposite of networking.

Networking is gold. Networkers that also produce extraordinary things will get even better results.

What about the larger point: that networking is an effect of achievement, not a cause.

If the author is correct, even "good" networking is not as effective as making something worth making. (I assume that this "maker" bias is intuitively appealing to the larger HN community.)

>> In Study 1, White and Asian nonnative speakers using the same scripted responses as native speakers were found to be significantly less likely to be recommended for a middle-management position, and this bias was fully mediated by assessments of their political skill.

>> Nonnative speakers were found to have a significantly lower likelihood of receiving new-venture funding

That's an interesting bias, I wonder if/how it varies by accents, as those can be quite different. Are foreign accents from countries where English is still a major language like U.K., Australia, India, ..., perceived differently than foreign accents from non english-speaking countries?

[1] http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-28924-001

What it says basically is that you have to be really talented first and have done a lot of work... After that all you can do is wait and hope that you get lucky; try to network slowly but don't try too hard to the point of scaring away investors.

In my case, I started an open source project, it's somewhat popular within its niche - To most people it means nothing at all but on a few occasions I met people who knew about my project and when I told them about my work their eyes lit up and they treated me quite positively (E.g. they try to hire me).

The article seems to advising students not to Network and just focus on building a product or a solution that is worthy of attention. But if you read it carefully, it actually not saying so. The title itself says that Networking is overrated, it doesn't say it's useless.

To build a strong Network a combination of three things are needed:

#1: Character - How you treat others #2: Competence - How good you are at something #3: Consistency - How are you able to stay connect with your network

This article is about the second element of competence, it not reducing the value of other two, rather is advising students not to reduce the value of competence.

All three have equal weight and if students start to rely just on networking, they may struggle. That is a fair point.

Good piece.

Paritosh Pathak Strategic Networking Coach

What's better than networking is being good at your job, enjoying it, and enjoying working with those around you.

If you do those things, you'll have the network you need.

If you don't, get serious about finding it.

Poor choice of title for a good article. If you enjoyed this article and like to learn to implement value added techniques I suggest Ramit Sethi's blog iwillteachyoutoberich, not the scam it sounds like lol.

Building a network is important to increase opportunities. It's much easier to be on the receiving end of people wanting to connect with you once people know you can provide value/you have accomplished something they are interested in.

Networking, when defined as a practice of always adding value first, and seeking other similar givers to build your network around is invaluable. Takers are everywhere and learning to recognize and filter them as needed is a critical skill.

Instead of being concerned that you have no office, be concerned to think how you may fit yourself for office. Instead of being concerned that you are not known, seek to be worthy of being known.

Networking means creating meaningful relationships based on mutual benefits. If you are in a position to help someone, help her. She will then help you back later on when she can. And this is by no means overrated. If anything is underrated.

Lets say there was an absolute master of his profession that nobody knows. Compare that to someone who knows enough to get by when it comes to his profession but knows most people there is to know in the industry. In general, which one is more likely to get hired? Who will have better references? Who is likely to know about vacancies before they are announced? Are companies willing to hire someone because he answered more question in a test even vs who did OK but has a lot of good references from respectable people, some of whom they personally know?

Someone who only cares about a better paying job should spend 90% of their time in networking and 10% on honing their profession because networking is all that matters. Someone who absolutely loves their work will happily do their share of work for a lower pay.

I can't tell if the author has identified a straw man or a weak man, but I don't think serious, accomplished people give out the advice that successful networking = acting like a pest and creating hollow relationships.

Maybe we need a better way to describe networking, right now we use the same work to describe establishing credibility and rapport with like minded people and attempting to become a barnacle / remora on a successful person.

I don't know if I've ever consciously networked, but seeking out like-minded people and engaging them with interesting discussion / ideas has served me well. Though I work in a technical capacity and it does seem as though people-management is qualitatively different but not completely divorced.

I've seen talentless hacks rise up (or fail up?) but the success was never sustainable and for some reason, all those people never saved enough money for the inevitable rainy day: they blow something up or lose a game of executive musical chairs, leave, and can't swindle their way into a comparable job.

However, it's been my experience that the vast majority of executives who have held onto their executive position for longer than 2 power struggles are very deserving of the position. Sure, a lot of them let off the gas relative to the performance that got them into their role. But they're extraordinarily capable people.

The only way to really sustain positive career trajectory is through accomplishment (and unfortunately, accomplishment isn't a guarantee of a successful career). And if you can't do that, you have to skate by on 'luck'.

Cronyism seems to ebb and flow, I think there's a lot of it right now because most businesses aren't that competitive. But if we get some creative destruction going, we'll see the balance of power shift more decisively towards makers and doers.

One trend that I've seen in the past 3 years that I like a lot is more salary growth opportunity for technical employees. 5 years ago, I saw a lot of companies stall people out, "if you want to make more money you have to become a manager". But a lot of companies lost a lot of talent and now they're correcting their dumb policy.

How is this related to network? It's just a consideration and optimization problem (and maybe a problem that maps well to your sociability) but networking shouldn't be a 4 letter word. If you're not enjoying it, you'll probably be well-rewarded to find a way to make it more enjoyable and that's pretty easy if you enjoy some element of your profession.

I'm reminded of The Last Psychiatrist's article, "This Is Why The American Dream Is Out Of Reach". It's also about a NYT article.

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/08/this_is_why_the_ameri...

there's a deeper problem: people see personal connections and favors as key path to prosperity. Sure, they help. But the most lucrative opportunities aren't the chance to meet someone important, the most lucrative opportunities are those that involve solving a problem. How much time do parasites put into networking? I bet it's more time than they put into starting a new business or doing something.

Therefore, if you're more like the Latina and less like the young White dude you should focus on technical ability more and networking less. That being said, everyone should maintain their relationships at a minimum, for no amount of technical excellence can defeat irrelevance.

People will definitely try to shush this blatant reality, but anyone who's not White will definitely tell you for themselves. For what its worth, it's less about being White and more about the fact that all of the incumbents in this particular industry are White. For basketball you could easily replace "young White" with "young Black"