St. Louis Business Journal
How to make networking productive

By Anna Navarro

August 2000 - Everybody networks. But for some people, it's an exercise in wheel spinning that provides little career traction.

A good case in point is Martha, an accountant who came to see me after conducting well over 100 networking interviews that led nowhere. She was not only despondent about her career, but she was convinced that networking was all hype, and she swore she'd never do it again.

She had been let go when her firm lost a big client. Though she was a hard worker, she was not by nature detail oriented, and this sometimes caused problems in the consistency of her work. She basically was not cut out to be an accountant.

As part of her severance package, she received some training in how to conduct a networking interview. Being the hard worker she was, she set out to do an intensive networking campaign. She succeeded in getting appointments, and having great meetings. But it didn't lead to a job.

What was the problem here?

Martha was spinning her wheels because she had not studied herself and the world of work. She was meeting with people in the hope they could tell her where she might fit in, what she might enjoy doing. But it's unrealistic to think that a person she was meeting for the first time would be able to give her an instant career assessment and tell her what she should do.

Instead, Martha needed to back off and do a great deal of homework before networking. She needed to analyze herself and what characteristics she wanted in work, i.e., what skills, working conditions, money, etc., she needed in order to be happy.

Doing a self-analysis of this type would have meant doing some challenging internal work, like accepting who she was and what she truly wanted and putting aside notions of who she thought she should be, or what others (like parents and spouse) expected of her.

Once she had dealt with these issues, she would have been ready to do library and Internet research to pinpoint some fields that might provide her with what she was looking for in a job.

After doing that, she would have benefited greatly by networking to find out whether the fields she was investigating were a good fit for her. Armed with a list of what she was looking for in a career, she could have asked straightforward questions to determine whether the field was a good fit. For example, she could have asked, "How much detail is involved in this kind of work?" and ruled out areas that were a poor match for her in that regard.

These are the kinds of questions that the people she was meeting with could have readily answered. They were unlikely to understand her well enough to give her coherent advice about her future on the basis of a single meeting. But they could in all probability describe their work, its demands, and its payoffs, and answer specific questions about whether it fit her needs.

Eventually this type of networking would have led her to clarity about the kind of field in which she would be happy and successful.

Then she would have been ready for a different kind of networking, aimed at helping her find a position in her chosen field.

The ethics of networking dictate that she would never, ever ask a person for a job. It's inappropriate to put anyone on the spot. But she could have asked for advice that would have helped her get a job: who the major players in the field are, what their needs are, what someone with her background should do to get hired, etc.

And if the person she was meeting with liked her, and knew of openings, she might have gotten the inside scoop on attractive positions. Then her networking would have REALLY started to have traction.

What's the difference between the kind of networking Martha engaged in and what I am proposing?

What I am suggesting involves asking very specific questions that the person you are talking to can readily answer. If you know what kind of work you are seeking, devising these kinds of questions is relatively easy. But if you don't, (as was the case with Martha), it requires doing an enormous amount of soul-searching, research and thinking in advance of the networking interview.

Networking is indeed a very, very valuable tool in anyone's career arsenal. But it often requires much advance preparation to yield useful results.

Anna Navarro is the founder of Work Transitions, a nationwide career consulting firm that trains independent career strategists and consults with individual clients.

This column was originally published by the St. Louis Business Journal. The actual title of the column and date in which it appeared in the Business Journal may be slightly different from what appears on WorkTransitions.com.