St. Louis Business Journal
Networking is still the most powerful job hunting technique

By Anna Navarro

November 2001 - The world of job hunting has changed significantly since the advent of the Internet. But personal networking is still the single most powerful job hunting technique available.

To understand why that's true, you have to put yourself in the place of an employer.

The most important thing for an employer is to hire someone whose performance they can rely on, since often their own performance depends on how well the new person functions in the job. Risk reduction is a major consideration in making an employment decision. Hiring a loser can result in significant negative consequences: loss of time, momentum, money and morale.

Consequently, most employers have distinct preferences for the techniques they use to fill jobs. Their order of preference is based largely on the likelihood that they will avert a bad hiring decision.

The preferred method is to hire someone whose performance they have observed personally. This includes:

• Promoting someone from lower in the ranks

• Transferring someone at the same level into the vacancy

• Offering a full time position to a part-time worker, a temp, a consultant who has worked on a freelance basis, a volunteer or a former employee.

If this isn't possible, another preferred approach is to hire an attractive individual who has crossed their paths in various situations, and about whom they have formed a positive impression. While they may not know the candidate well, they at least have had the opportunity to form a personal opinion of the individual.

If employers can't hire someone they know from personal experience the next choice is to ask for suggestions for candidates from people they trust, who know their operation and are presumed to have their best interests at heart. These include:

• Trusted colleagues or other employees in the organization

• Associates who they know through business or professional associations

• Those selected friends, family and acquaintances whose judgement they trust (NOT Uncle Bill, who is desperately trying to find a job for his new son-in-law)

Placing a listing on the Internet or in newspapers is a much less preferred hiring method because it lacks the vital personal connection that reduces the risk employers face when hiring. But there are other problems as well.

Internet listings and postings and newspaper ads require a great deal of work to sift through. Yes, there is software that identifies candidates who use key words or phrases in their resumes. But if you only know a candidate through resumes, references and interviews, you have to spend a huge amount of time to discern if there is anything bogus going on. And even then, you have to hold you breath and hope you are getting the straight scoop on a candidate.

The one "sort of" exception is if the field requires very specific, externally verifiable credentials, like nursing or well-defined computer skills. The external credentialing mitigates some of the concerns that emerge from not knowing a candidate personally. But it doesn't totally eliminate them. Even well respected credentialing institutions have been known to certify losers.

What all this means for you, if you are looking for work, is that you need to make positive personal contact with people in your targeted field.

If you meet people in your targeted field and present yourself appealingly, you're bound to hear about openings. If the person you're interviewing has no openings and knows of none with other employers, you can still get some very valuable advice and suggestions for other people to contact. And you are also likely to be remembered in the future, should openings occur. (Of course, you have to do a GOOD job of networking. Poor networking skills can get you into worse trouble than not networking at all!)

The Internet DOES offer job seekers a great deal. It is indispensable as a place to do research on different kinds of fields. It is a terrific source of information about what organizations do the kind of work you are interested in, and who you might approach for a networking interview. It is also helpful for job hunting in other cities.

And internet jobs listings and postings, like newspaper ads, are an important secondary job hunting technique because there is always a chance a good employer may not have been able to find someone through personal connections. But personal networking is still the single most valuable tool in the job-hunting arsenal.

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.