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.
+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?
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.
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).
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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].
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.
Seems to be less 'networking is overrated' and more 'networking events are overrated/don't work'.
Which makes sense. Those events tend to be about 99.99% desperate business people try to sell you something, and don't really attract the attention of anyone they'd need to attract nor the level of genuine closeness you'd need anyway. It's like the offline equivalents of those 'promotion forums' and subreddits you see online; absolutely depressing as hell because no one cares about anything other than selling themselves and no one in their actual market is around to take them up on the offer. In the same way you can't create the next Facebook by solely marketing to people who want to create the next Facebook, you can't make useful connections from events where everyone has the same self centred goals.
This article makes very little sense. It disparages "networking", and then goes on to give all of these examples of successful networking. Successful networking isn't about trying to get everyones details, or trying to pump your brand at every opportunity possible - rather it's about working out where you can add value to others.
Silicon Valley is built on networking - the referral paths that lead to talent, capital, opportunities - it's all invite only. That's by design.
Platforms won't solve this. I'm in recruiting, where we're supposedly always about to be disrupted. But the platforms don't solve the two big recruitment problems - 1: you don't need more candidates, you just need a few very good ones and 2: people who have good opportunities don't broadly see the value in setting themselves up on platforms to "just look". But a lot of unqualified tyre kickers do.
It's not that "networking" as a concept is useless - building solid relationships helps you spread the word when you need talent, capital and opportunities, or anything really.
I think the point is that "shallow networking" is useless. Simply because I have your business card (or we're connected on LinkedIn), does not mean that I am in your "network", or vice versa.
I think I have quite an extensive "network" (people with whom I meet regularly and who are willing to help with introductions/events/etc).
That has taken a number of years to grow, and most of those relationships started because I helped them out with something, with no expectation of return. In other words, I actually was in a position to help, and I actually delivered.
There's a lot of compounding/snowballing too - every person you help usually introduces you to two or three others over the course of the relationship. It's not even a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" - I'm genuinely interested in helping out anyone I can.
Using Jeffery Pfeffer's model, power in business and organizations is a function of performance, credentials, and relationships. These are weighted differently in different places. It's important to know how they are weighted in your field of endeavour, because it describes how people will be sorted for success.
I would argue that it depends on what you are aiming for, and what your desired outcome is. If there is attrition in your field, figure out why people lose. Is it incompetence, a terminal lack of guanxi, or did they get layered by someone from the right school?
I like the idea of power as a function of performance, credentials, and relationships. From your experience in the tech industry, how would you prioritize these 3 dimensions?
Different types of orgs are defined by how they are weighted.
Security startups, pure performance and relationships, with credentials a distant third. Historically anyway, it's changing.
Since we're talking power, not rewards, relationships and credentials appear to trump raw performance at some FAANGs as their business models professionalize.
Impression is venture funding goes to whoever fits the profile, so ivy credentials with relationships have the advantage over performance.
Different stages weight accordingly. The best businesses require the least competence to operate and maintain, so maturity converges on incompetent, nepotistic snake pits. :)
The only meaningful connections I've ever made, were made randomly sitting at a bar, dinners, and anywhere else you're forced into sitting next to strangers in a casual(not work related) environment. Seriously, if you want to meet people, eat at the bar.
I think the fact that you are at a bar, and not hunting is what makes people more open. When you are networking in an event (where everyone is), you have your guards up.
You basically think everyone is a shark trying to get to you.
When you are relaxed at a bar (alcohol helps), you think people are chilling out; and you tend to believe what the other guy is saying.
Here is another one: Airplanes. I have made some very good friends just by sitting next to someone. (and some very interesting stories).
Another one which is a win-win: High caliber girls which introduces you to their circles. Usually it's a set of another "good" girls that have boyfriends who are rather established.
Another one is being married and meeting other married people through kids activity. I'm speculating here I have never been through that.
The other big piece, is think of how you can help the person you're talking to. Don't think about how you can help yourself. People who naturally try to help others, end up getting help in spades when they need it.
> 'Another one which is a win-win: High caliber girls which introduces you to their circles. Usually it's a set of another "good" girls that have boyfriends who are rather established.'
you're missing a lot of interpersonal value if that's your conclusion. on the converse, it wouldn't be surprising if those circles quietly distanced themselves from such self-centeredness.
On being married: Your speculation is right on the money. Having a wife/husband increases your network size especially if you're a sit at home homebody type (lolz). Their friends become either your connections or at the very least give you much more data points. Women tend tend to share important information more freely with each other, thus you can hear about a lot of interesting stuff going on at other lives and companies, etc.
I don't think business networking is about meaningful connections, not in the sense of connecting on a personal level. Having said that, I never excelled at business networking myself for not being able to connect at a deeper level
Meaningful, as in something beyond I'm only trying to extract money from you, not connecting at a level that makes for great sex. There is a middle ground there where two people can be genuine in being mutually beneficial to one another.
Sounds off. I love bar food, and not so much the alcohol, I've had to stop, or, more accurately slow down for health reasons ( bar food tends to be bad for you ), but I met lots of people. My data point, people go to bars to be social. It helps to sit at the bar and not at a table.
I've received some big breaks by knowing the correct people, but not a single one of them has been a 2-minute connection from some BS networking event. It's always been a preexisting, unrelated relationship which eventually becomes career relevant.
I'm shocked by the number of seniors/recent grads who contact me out of the blue (god knows where they got my info) asking for recommendations or a break. No, I'm not going to stick my neck out by recommending someone I've never met for an open position.
On the other hand, when a recent grad or otherwise distant connection-of-a-connection reaches out to ask me to coffee or a 15-minute call to “pick my brain” about my career experiences (a so-called “informational interview”), I almost never turn them down.
This. Hi! I'm one of the 100,000 people that happened to graduate from the same school that you did. Can you put in a referral for me?
Mind you. I am often happy to respond to a few questions in an email (or even a quick call) from pretty much anyone. Though a good percentage of the time, when I do that I don't get so much as a Gmail form "Thanks."
I'm not inherently opposed to referring people I don't know, as long as we have some sort of connection. The referral bonus at my company is pretty nice, after all.
So what I do is ask for a CV and cover letter; if they're good I can upload all the documents straight into the HR system and save the candidate the trouble.
In my experience, only a small minority of the cold outreach people actually respond to my request, and the responses I do get are usually low quality and don't merit a referral.
Well put. That's what's rubbed me the wrong way with all these networking events. A drink + a little small talk doesn't really deepen anything for me. One thing I've recently started that I've thoroughly been enjoying is throwing a "let's play a game over lunch" networking event.
It does a few things differently that I've enjoyed.
1) It's over lunch. it doesn't require an obligation that takes me away from my loved ones in the evening. I'm going to eat lunch anyways, might as well do it with a group of friends or strangers.
2) We don't have to small talk. There's a game involved. There's rules to that help us to talk to each other. It's so much easier to do so then.
3) Playing a game deepens these relationships. I can't even explain it. But it's this artificial conflict that's been creating these stronger bonds with these folks I'm playing a game with. I can't wait to play the next game with them and have our chats afterwards.
4) The game I picked was important. I picked "The Resistance". It's similar to Mafia/Werewolf where you're basically all trying to figure out who's lying to you. So the game isn't what most folks think about when they think a game with cards or board games. It's really just talking and learning how people express themselves.
So it really goes deep in examining people and having them examine you. It's a weird feeling to go through that type of process with acquaintances. But every time I've played a "lying game" like Mafia/Resistance with a group of acquaintances or new folks, I'm so much more comfortable talking to them about so many other things.
It's been fun. I've been told by some folks it's in their top meetups they've ever done, and it takes ridiculously low effort. Just email some people to show up and play a game. Don't need to shell out for food/drinks/speakers/other garbage.
(I'm in Chicago doing this. If anyone here wants to come and play hit me up.)
> 4) The game I picked was important. I picked "The Resistance". It's similar to Mafia/Werewolf where you're basically all trying to figure out who's lying to you. So the game isn't what most folks think about when they think a game with cards or board games. It's really just talking and learning how people express themselves.
Sounds a little bit too close to Diplomacy. A game that has famously ruined friendships. The stated goal of Diplomacy is not to figure out who's lying, but that is the actual goal.
Networks, personal/professional/everything in-between, are not overrated. Anecdote but every job since my first one out of school came directly through people I had worked with in some capacity or other.
However, contrast with "Networking" with a capital-N in the giving out business cards like candy at some business networking cocktail party. It's probably a combination of how deep the connection is as you say and just the general attitude that tends to pervade those sorts of events.
I have the opposite anecdote. I've never known anyone at any job I've ever gotten. FWIW, I get offers at about 80% of places that interview me. Admittedly, my understanding from some economics literature I've read is that your case is far more normal.
I'm sure it depends. If you have some broadly in-demand skill and it's obvious from your resume that you're competent at it (and, in fact, are), you may flow through the various filters pretty easily. You check the various boxes at a lot of companies and, in some ways, have a much bigger hunting ground.
OTOH, post long-term job #1 I was relatively senior and didn't have a background that was particularly appealing to a lot of the cool young companies of the era. But I did have former co-workers at one place that gave me a quick offer. And, since then, it's been pretty specialized roles that came pretty much 100% through ongoing professional relationships.
Maybe it's more about mutual favors, and not necessary shallow vs deep ?
If you helped some remote contact of yours somehow(knowledge, connections, maybe even just lending a hand when he needed), I'm sure he would be much more likely to return the favor.
Every job I've had since my first job has been through a personal referral, from people I have worked closely with in the past. Not from people I met at "networking" events.
This has certainly been my experience. The type of connections that seem to really fast track the acquaintances I've witnessed move quickly through career ladders, certainly weren't made at networking events. They were made at weddings, bar-mitzvahs, and dinners. In other words connections that existed with or without business networking events etc.
On my very first interview at Google long time ago (when they still did crazy puzzles and combinatorics) I solved two tough problems nobody solved before (interviewers told me). I didn't get in. Three years later another recruiter told me they almost hired me (borderline decision), but nobody knew me, so tough luck lol.
I'm a consultant with a pretty good book of clients now. I could never have gotten started without a network of people I met at business/networking events outside of work.
I've also never gotten a client through a personal or non-work connection. I don't think my social or family network is ritzy enough for that to work.
I'm a consultant, too, but I'm new to it and for the past several years relied on luck and recruiters/LinkedIn. Can I ask what types of events? Meetups and tech events? Is that possible as a DevOps engineer, which is very much easy to find via recruiters anyway?
>> Accomplishing great things helps you develop a network.
The author has experience on the networking side of the fence and it's interesting to hear their point of view.
As someone who has experience on the value creation side of the fence (I created a popular open source project), as much as I wish the previous statement were true, it's not.
The problem is that wealthy investors don't know the difference between apparent value and real value. It's just too complex for them to understand and they just don't have the time. Also, investors expect talent to come to them not the other way round. Another factor is that things that only appear valuable tend deliver faster exits so they may be optimizing for smooth-talkers with a sleek pitch deck rather than long term value creation.
I've worked in many companies where the manager doesn't know the difference between a good engineer and a bad one. It's extremely frustrating. You would think that these kinds of companies would go bankrupt eventually but no; they have a monopoly over their niche/sector so engineering quality does not matter at all. They can hire 100 times more people than they need and produce horrible complex code which requires constant maintenance and it will only represent a tiny dent in their budget.
If most engineering managers don't know what a good software engineer is, how can a VC or investor know? Just because they worked at Google and can solve the Tower of Hanoi puzzle using recursion does not make them a good engineer
Every full time job I've ever had, even the first one, came from networking and connections. Of course there is a balance to strike, and you can't just go to a ton of events and hope that it works out. But going to the right events that lets you make a deep connection with one or two people can be very useful.
Its all about knowing the right people and being intelligent. To say its all one or the other is naive. I will say a good majority of networking events are the 'wrong' people. They're all out looking to network and you don't get anything aside from a few business cards of people who can't help you, or ultimately don't want to; they're just looking for you to help them. Every break I've gotten in life has come from knowing the right person, particularly through my university alumni network.
I do a significant amount of business in Japan, and the Japanese perceive America to be all about networking. The reason being, in Japan most folks stay at the same company their entire life, there is no need to really network.
I think that's called interacting with people over the normal course of business, and isn't something that's thought of as requiring specific targeted effort.
Correctly or not, the term "networking" has come to carry a connotation of attending "networking events" and passing out business cards with great abandon. I meet and keep in touch with tons of people at conferences and otherwise in the course of my daily activities but I don't really think of that as Networking.
There are entrepreneurs whose primary income is serving as 'glue' through networking. They are constantly tapped to connect companies and bring projects to life. Typically they make themselves available to solve problems for you and make introductions.
Person A is a consultant/investor of business A who is looking to expand their retail footprint to a new geography. They have a friend, person B, who is a big networker. Person B knows the landlord of a business at a suitable location and introduces the two parties. The networker gets an option to invest, finds an investor willing to split the upside, and takes a mid 6 figure success fee with no money invested. The work done is pretty minimal and the entire thing relies heavily on knowing other wealthy individuals and successful entrepreneurs.
"Networking" in the LinkedIn sense is overrated; having lots of friendly acquaintances and friends who respect you is correctly rated highly. It's extremely useful (and also fun, at least if you enjoy people).
> Spanx took off when Oprah Winfrey chose it as one of her favorite things of the year — but not because she was stalked by the company’s founder, Sara Blakely. For two and a half years, Ms. Blakely sold fax machines by day so that she could build her prototype of footless pantyhose by night. She sent one from the first batch to Ms. Winfrey.
So the take-home message is don't network, just physically spam celebrities with your product. Got it.
This article feels like an opinion piece. I say feels like because there were a few studies referenced light heartedly which had me hoping we'd see more.
If this article could gain that higher source of truth I'd argue it's a heck of a bombshell to the conversation...otherwise my experience and many others in comments below seem to differ.
