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No, I believe it does work... in very narrow and defined fields.
No one is going to hire a software developer or architect except a very well-defined range of companies, which are often clustered in small geographic regions. "Networking" that field would be productive... and would also be, as I've said, more or less integral to working in the field. If, after a few years, you don't know a few dozen people in strategic locations, whom you've worked with and have now perfused into the larger local industry, you're either an incompetent boob or socially inept to an astonishing degree. Leveraging those connections is somewhere between easy and trivial.
Ditto for industries like insurance, government work, even education - small worlds with a finite number of employers and a need for certain well-defined skill sets.
But all that's a finite, closed and probably much smaller segment of the job market than the hypermyopic networking boosters seem to be able to grasp.
Yep. At least a dozen times. You've repeated it like a mantra.
And I and others have replied in a fairly specific and cogent way that this is a great process for those who work in a narrowly-defined field with a finite number of potential employers.
For those of us who have broader application of our careers and might find employment in a very wide range of industries, companies, positions and niches... it's just effin' babble.
But you've proven yourself completely incapable of registering that.
If I were a software developer, the number of employers and the types of positions I might seek and fill would fit on a 3x5 card. Your religious approach would be applicable and hard to argue in any way.
What I do is far more general to business and industry. There are probably 10,000 companies in the Denver area that could and might employ me suitably, if they were seeking to create or fill that position.
Without repeating your effing mantra one more freakin' time... just how do you suggest I "network" most of the business in the 23rd largest city in the US?
So how many hours have you spent trying to create networking plans, and actually executing those plans over the last month? Give me an exact number.
Here's your homework.
Pick a few companies to start that impress you. Start with 10. Research those companies. Research two people who work for each of those companies who you'd like to talk to, if possible.
Pick 20 people you know, have met, or at least know about who impress you career-wise. Generate a list of five questions you'd want to ask each of them about their careers. The goal is to get them to talk. People love talking about themselves.
Find real estate agents or investment advisers you may know, or who friends of yours may know. People in those professions have a lot of connections. Find at least one person in one of those professions, ask if they could have coffee with you.
When you have that list of 10 companies, two people at each company, the list of 20 people who impress you, and that one real estate agent or investment advisers, report back and we'll put the plan together on how to start to contact those people.
Again, approach networking from a structured, disciplined method. Set aside 5 hours every week to actually working through this.
So how many hours have you spent trying to create networking plans, and actually executing those plans over the last month? Give me an exact number.
Zero. Sue me.
Quote:
Here's your homework.
Which conforms exactly to the very narrow, finite-employer, defined-role 'networking' I have already conceded is productive within that realm... but is absolutely useless to anyone in a broader, less-rigid hiring situation.
I believe you're absolutely incapable of grasping this point. For one thing, all you have done is repeat the same few words over and over, with no attempt to explain or expand or convince. It's just dogma; dogma that apparently works great for you, but which you are incapable of understanding won't work for those who are not exactly like you.
So how many hours have you spent trying to create networking plans, and actually executing those plans over the last month? Give me an exact number.
Here's your homework.
Pick a few companies to start that impress you. Start with 10. Research those companies. Research two people who work for each of those companies who you'd like to talk to, if possible.
Pick 20 people you know, have met, or at least know about who impress you career-wise. Generate a list of five questions you'd want to ask each of them about their careers. The goal is to get them to talk. People love talking about themselves.
Find real estate agents or investment advisers you may know, or who friends of yours may know. People in those professions have a lot of connections. Find at least one person in one of those professions, ask if they could have coffee with you.
When you have that list of 10 companies, two people at each company, the list of 20 people who impress you, and that one real estate agent or investment advisers, report back and we'll put the plan together on how to start to contact those people.
Again, approach networking from a structured, disciplined method. Set aside 5 hours every week to actually working through this.
They will put you on a blacklist for being some kind of a scam artist.
If all you have to offer to someone is your brown tongue, or focusing on that, then probably you are not competent to do the actual job.
The other issue is the HR interference:
1. blocking resumes from HM ever seeing it.
2. preventing the HM from hiring who he wants to hire, based on BS HR criteria, or rigid low ball salary ranges. Even after I networked the HM. This happened to me at a big corporation, I messaged the engineering director (who was already my contact from LinkedIn) who was eager to hire me, but was not allowed to hire me by their own HR.
So to be clear, you're putting no effort into networking, and saying it doesn't work? hmm....
Why on earth wouldn't you try to network? Are you saying you wouldn't be able to put the lists of companies and people together that I described? You can't think of ten companies you want to work for, and can't think of 20 people you admire, or that have successful careers?
Quote:
Originally Posted by buenos
They will put you on a blacklist for being some kind of a scam artist.
If all you have to offer to someone is your brown tongue, or focusing on that, then probably you are not competent to do the actual job.
The other issue is the HR interference:
1. blocking resumes from HM ever seeing it.
2. preventing the HM from hiring who he wants to hire, based on BS HR criteria, or rigid low ball salary ranges. Even after I networked the HM. This happened to me at a big corporation, I messaged the engineering director (who was already my contact from LinkedIn) who was eager to hire me, but was not allowed to hire me by their own HR.
Blacklisted for what? Talking to people, getting to know them leads to most hires. Social skills are important, as much as people on this forum hate to hear it. When you finally submit your resume to HR, someone in that company should already know who you are, and what your story is. Submitting resumes blindly on online ads is a terrible way to find work.
I assume you have the technical skills, just like the other 100 people you're competing against for that job. Hiring managers will first ask around their company to see if anyone knows someone who is looking for work. Then, and only after that's been exhausted will they start to look at resumes sent in blindly online. You're networking so that you're one of the first people considered, instead of playing the lottery that your resume will be picked out of the stack of 100 that HR got from indeed.com and glances at for 5 seconds before moving on.
If networking doesn't work, how come I've encountered so many stories about how someone is pissed off because a friend of a manager got hired/promoted over them?
If networking doesn't work, how come I've encountered so many stories about how someone is pissed off because a friend of a manager got hired/promoted over them?
That's not the same thing as what is being suggested here (networking with random strangers). What you're referring to is nepotism/cronyism. Those types of relationships take tremendous amounts of time to establish, something you generally don't have when you're trying to get a job immediately.
Then there is what I have mentioned, which is networking with people whom you've worked with in the past. That's generally the type of networking I prefer, because it occurs organically.
So to be clear, you're putting no effort into networking, and saying it doesn't work? hmm....
I'm putting no effort into trying to learn to fly by flapping my arms, either.
Quote:
Why on earth wouldn't you try to network? Are you saying you wouldn't be able to put the lists of companies and people together that I described? You can't think of ten companies you want to work for, and can't think of 20 people you admire, or that have successful careers?
Dear Zeus, you are obtuse.
I spend at least two hour a day working on employment, but through channels and efforts that have some hope of connecting me with a job. The absolutely zero-traction method you keep chanting like a mantra is not something I waste time on, and I've explained why at around ten times the length of your work-prayer.
I assume you have the technical skills, just like the other 100 people you're competing against for that job.
you are so wrong. That is what HR thinks also, that is why they don't feel they are damaging their own employer by rejecting few of those "identical" candidates. In my field 1% of the people are capable of developing a product from scratch within budget with competitive feature set. The remaining 99% are incompetent charlatans and stupid corporate drones. When I review resumes or interview many people, I rarely see someone who understands the details of our profession at a level of being positively productive. People have impressive credentials like Principal engineer for 10 years at Intel or Cisco, then I ask them technical questions and they just cannot answer most of those. I ask them what projects they worked on and what their role was in the project, and the answer describes someone like what an intern would be doing not a principal engineer. I guess they got their current jobs through nepotism or networking. Little maffias are milking the corporate cow, but they are unemployable by any other meritocratic company.
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Originally Posted by Sir Quotes A Lot
That's not the same thing as what is being suggested here (networking with random strangers). What you're referring to is nepotism/cronyism. Those types of relationships take tremendous amounts of time to establish, something you generally don't have when you're trying to get a job immediately.
Then there is what I have mentioned, which is networking with people whom you've worked with in the past. That's generally the type of networking I prefer, because it occurs organically.
Corporations these days make people sign a paper that states that you will refrain from recruiting former colleagues, or else. So I contact former colleagues, and when they receive my message they are in deep fear of being sued by my employer and them loosing everything they have. So they don't respond.
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