I was listening to ‘Cult of Personality’ by Living Coulor today and the beginning of the song (which, in my opinion, is one of the best ever recorded) a snippet of a Malcolm X quote is featured, “. . .and during the few moments that we have left, we want to talk right down to earth in a language that everybody here can easily understand.”
To breakdown job-search into a ‘language everybody here can easily understand’ if you don’t network don’t expect to find work anytime soon.
Now, I know a lot of people have differing definitions of what networking is. Some might think sending an email (or InMail), or connecting with someone on LinkedIn, or showing up at a chamber of commerce meeting is networking.
All of them are kinda, sorta, in a way networking but what I am referring to is good old fashion one-on-one informational meetings over coffee or your favorite beverage.
If I am being honest, I am to the point where I feel just as sorry for those who tell me they have applied for 1,000 jobs and haven’t heard anything back as I am those that play the lottery and don’t hit the jack-pot.
To put it simply, there’s no global conspiracy to promote networking to the detriment of our way of life and nobody is secretly making money off of telling career experts to promote it as an effective job-search tool.
The reason that so many people promote networking is BECAUSE IT WORKS.
If you are going to refuse to do effective networking please go tell your sob story to someone else, there is not much I can do to help you. I know that’s harsh and I will probably have someone hate me because I said it but it needed to be said.
Learn how to network (read our previous post on the topic), learn how to do it well, keep your network alive, strong, and well and you have more job security than you could ever imagine.
Until next time – good hunting and good luck!
