
To current students on LinkedIn
Around once a week, I receive a request on LinkedIn from a current student at my alma mater. To be clear: around once a week, I receive a request from a student whom I have never met or spoken to at my alma mater.
Approximately once every few months, these requests include a personalized note asking me about my career path or current employer. Without fail, I send a response answering their questions (if applicable) and often offer to talk to them about their aspirations.*
The other requests? They get deleted. I don’t care if you shared my major, lived in the same dorm as me, or have already added 50 of my connections.
For students or networking novices, the important thing to ask yourself when “connecting” with someone is: do either of us gain value from this interaction?
I am very happy to providevalue to current students who are looking to break into consulting or tech start-ups and receivevalue from having a strong connection moving forward. Yet when you add someone without talking or have only a superficial exchange, chances are that they won’t remember you three months from now. Your world has not become any better for having them in it and neither of your net values have changed.
When students add me without including a message, I can’t help but think that they believe they add no value to the interaction, assuming that I am doing them a favor whether we have a conversation or no interaction at all. Those who add someone on LinkedIn to get out of having a full conversation and those who avoid adding alumni at all because they’re afraid they’ll lead to an informational interview are suffering from the same root problem: many students mistakenly believe that successful professionals do not want to talk to them. Whether you are the most junior person in the room or a current student, you still add sizable value to new relationships, and understanding this is often the biggest roadblock to successful networking. If the prior statement describes you, check out my how-to on Networking: Methods for a Light Ask.
Ultimately, you should strive to build strong relationships with a small and manageable group of people. A large network of acquaintances may be helpful at points in your career, but only if it is developed organically through something more than the click of a button, such as by being cross-functional colleagues or by meeting at a mixer. Furthermore, this network is not measured in the race of get 500 connections on LinkedIn. In fact, when I see a 20-year-old student with over 500 connections, I assume that few of these are actually valuable business relationships. No one expects you to prematurely reach a metric that inherently must be accumulated over time.
Reach out thoughtfully to those people with whom you genuinely want to connect and think about the kind of message that would get you to respond in five years’ time. What would make you take a phone call? When I reply to your message, it won’t be because I’m doing you a favor — I don’t even know you yet!
*If I receive an influx of messages after posting this article, I may have to change my rule.
