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Comment by tluyben2 | Hacker News Reader

It might be overrated but when I read the crazy whiteboard interviewing, the pains people go through to get money here on HN, I would say it is pretty important. I never had to do an interview in my life (25+ years as a professional), never had to really look for projects or investors. Not because of my parents but because I like to talk and network and connect people. When I need something I know where to ask. Sure maybe it is not required, but it sure makes life a lot easier IMHO.

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+1. How much of the angst on HN on the tech discriminates on age (which I fully agree with) is partly because people have locked themselves in a cubicle for ten years?

Or worked remote and let the network whither.

That's my #1 fear now. Life circumstances made me leave the big city I lived in previously, which is also a regional business/tech hub. While I was never doing explicit networking, I got pretty high mileage out of casual encounters and common projects I've done while hanging around a bunch of social and tech communities. Now, I feel totally disconnected, and sans of eventually moving back to some large city, I have no idea how to solve it. "Networking on-line" doesn't seem to be a thing (or maybe I'm not trying hard enough).

(I'm happy with my remote job. Most useful contacts and rewarding relationships I had came from off-job work. It's communities that I miss.)

I've been working remotely from Rome for 5 years with my own startup, and really felt that problem. Sometimes I think about possible solutions for people with this problem (even if I recently moved to London, I'm still not doing quite enough in this respect). Would you like to brainstorm about this, one of these days?

I solely work remotely and have always done (never worked in an office as such); I always work and worked in bars, coffeeshops, meetup venues: my breaks from coding, managing, negotiations during the day (and often to late evening) are talking with strangers. We end up with ‘keep in touch’ and even sometimes friendships come out of this (it also fixes the ‘you do not make new friends after 30’ thing).

Might be true, also I want to emphasize that at least in the startup scene I've seen business people discouraging tech people from networking. Probably being afraid that the people would indeed "leave their cubicle".

And yes, I also got almost all of my jobs through my network including LinkedIn, all formal tests I did - even when I passed - were for jobs that I didn't take in the end. Oftentimes because those weren't paid so well or because the perks were lousy. YMMV if you work for one of the big companies.

That's a gift that you have that many here don't, unfortunately. I coach some people for whom networking is all but out of the question. They test at really low levels of agreeableness, for example, but really high competence and a reasonable level of openness. So they aim for workplaces that want competent people who will keep their heads down. It's a different set of challenges for sure. We work on networking-arena skills in a sort of separate thread, but it sometimes just has to be lower priority or more focused on the fundamentals.

I ran a successful consulting company where ~90% of our revenue came from professional networking.

If you want something from people (like a job, their time or their money) then you should probably build trust and a connection with those people. That's called networking.

Can you expand on that - what do you mean by professional networking - sales people taking leads out for coffee a lot, keeping in touch with folks you used to work with, glad handing at lots of industry events

I think "networking" covers a lot of different behaviours and I am always interested in which ones work

The way I see it, networking is making friends with similar (or at least tangential) professional interests. In different roles and industries, the specifics can be very different. But the foundation of it is the relationship that you have with someone. I would say that my best networking contacts are friends that I know from college, or who I used to work with. These people need to know that you're competent enough to be successful in what you're looking to do. But they're also going to need to enjoy spending more time with you.

It's the people I consider friends that I want to reach out to about working with, and I know that these people would be advocates for me within their respective organizations.

For me it was keeping a client happy and then always saying yes to introductions that would eventually be made. Even if the project wasn't a good fit I'd say yes to the meeting just to build a connection and hopefully point the person in the right direction.

Or for non-clients, just taking time to ask how they're doing, what's new or really showing any spontaneous interest in their life or career. It's amazing how many times I checked in with people that it would remind them of someone they overheard needing consulting.

I also run a successful consultancy, and I wrote this in a similar comment before in 2017. This is how I do professional networking.

"For me to join a network the network has to match these criteria:

* It markets itself as exclusive

* It costs money (say $2k/y for small businesses and scaling prices depending on number of employees)

* Participants are owners or at C-level

The networks are often dinners where the participants get to know each other in friendly settings. I aim for networks with high middle age where I stick out as the younger (am mid-thirties) professional which connects tech with business needs (my niche).

While at a network, do not talk about yourself. Ask about others businesses and interests. These sells take between 6-12 months and are based on trust.

You also need to come prepared.

* Dress as expected.

* Have a web page with referrals so when leads get a bit nosy and Google you you're #1 in search and the page provides the lead with info about great work you've done. I have about 100 visits / mo to my page (my weird name helps for the #1 pos). 90% are primed leads.

* Know your oneliners. Prepare examples of things you can provide. Make them sound natural. Say it without selling in an informal way.

It's about being systematic and selecting only the networks where your dream leads go to. Hoping to get into invite only networks further on."

It's still going strong and we double our billing each year.

How do you get invited in these kind of events/networks?

Given that they market themselves as "exclusive" I suppose I won't find them in meetup.com but still you need to get started somewhere...

No, Meetup is for meetups, to meet other nerds :)

I Google my way - City + business network.

I also ask people I meet in business about their preferred networks, but only people I would like as a client.

Work your way from there. The networks want to be found, they want your money after all.

Edit, about starting somewhere: Some people work to connect businesses. Depending on your location, these can be Chamber of Commerce, Science Parks, tech hubs etc. Start by asking there and get yourself connected with the formal connections first.

There's a Frazz comic strip in which a kid asks Frazz, "If you could eat anything you wanted anyway... would you still exercise?"

https://www.gocomics.com/frazz/2015/03/26

The response is "I don't exercise. I like doing stuff that happens to be exercise."

The kid isn't impressed, but this is an important distinction. It's true of almost every exercise that anyone does. After being introduced to mathematical induction, I spent a while repeatedly writing out the proof that the sum of the first n odd numbers is the square of n. I did that because it was fun for me. Most people would think I was completely out of my mind -- if they had to do that, they'd happily pay you to be allowed to stop.

If an endeavor requires two things, A and B, and A comes naturally to you while even a tiny amount of B is pure agony, you're going to complain about the excessive importance of B. You'll see other people complaining about how important A is, and think they're crazy, because there are barely any demands for A at all -- in your mind. You don't perceive the requirement for A because you just have the natural level of A, and it's more than enough.

I'm pretty sure this entirely explains both the literature saying how important networking is, and the literature expressing bafflement at how overrated networking is.

Yeah. I've had interviews and I won't say they were formalities. But pretty much every one of those interviews (post first job out of school) were conversations with people I knew reasonably well.

> ... when I read the crazy whiteboard interviewing, the pains people go through to get money here on HN, I would say it is pretty important.

Networking won't help you get hired at a top tech company if you cannot perform well on "whiteboard interviews". It generally doesn't matter that you have an internal referral. If you don't do well on the whiteboard, it's a no-hire regardless of network. Even famous people get turned away for failing on the whiteboard. e.g. the creator of Homebrew[0] when he interviewed @ Google[1].

[0] https://brew.sh/

[1] https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768

The tech world is so much larger than FAANG, no matter what SV wants you to believe.

The greatest trick Silicon Valley ever pulled was convincing engineers their hoops were the righteous hoops to jump through.

What was their payoff for pulling this trick?

Quality talent that might have gone elsewhere.

it will. not at an entry level job, not at a core technical job where you still need to code but anything else (VP, Manager) it will

but VP interview doesn't imply whiteboarding to begin with..

Not manager...

Usually internal referral means you skip technical phone-screen. That's all.

AFAIK, this is true at Google but I have not heard of this practice occurring at other companies.

Sure, so if you have the ambition to work there then it still cannot hurt to do both. I do recognize that networking might be overrated for pure tech but on the other hand it cannot hurt; for instance if you fail the whiteboard at the company of your dreams at least you’ll walk into another place effortless. Remember that by far most of us are here to earn a living or start the company of our dreams and also most will never work at Google/Facebook; then it definitely does help to just lifted to the prime hire by the C*O you met at a party.

Indeed, and more likely they'll look the other way at minor flaws in your performance that would sink an outsider as "unsure/incompetent."

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