Why Networking Is Crucial, Regardless of How Much You Dislike It
I never understood networking — I didn’t know why people did it or how to go about it. Despite others telling me again and again that I had to “network” to get a job, I couldn’t figure out why it mattered so much. Didn’t people get jobs by applying to job postings? Wouldn’t my application materials (i.e. my resume, experiences, GPA, and interview) be the only things that mattered?
It wasn’t until the end of college that it clicked for me. Today, having leveraged networking to find each of my jobs and helped many others understand the process in order to do the same, I decided to write down, once and for all, why networking is so crucial to finding the best job for you.
What is networking?
There are different types of networking, so it’s important to be clear about what I am talking about. When I say “networking,” I am referring to the practice of talking with professionals in your field of interest, typically over the phone, in order to learn about their jobs and ask for advice.
Many people think of “networking events” where prospective applicants talk face-to-face with firm representatives when they hear the word “networking.” However, I’ve never found those events to be particularly useful, for two reasons. First, people at those events are being paid to represent the firm so they typically give canned responses to tough questions and almost never say anything bad about their experiences. Second, the events are usually so crowded that firm representatives are too rushed to give thoughtful answers to your questions. Although these types of networking events might be helpful in some situations, I’m not a big fan of them.
The 5 Reasons Why Networking is a Necessity
Reason 1: If you’re not networking, you won’t be considered for most jobs
According to Matt Youngquist, the president of Career Horizons who appeared on an NPR segment focused on the matter, “at least 70 percent, if not 80 percent, of jobs are not published.” ¹ All of those positions are therefore filled in other ways — meaning that they are filled through personal connections and relationships. Those aren’t great odds for you, if you choose not to network.
So, one of the key reasons why networking is crucial is that, if you find a company that really fits what you want to do and it’s clear to the company that you would excel at the job, there’s a chance that they will either a) tell you about openings that aren’t published online, or b) create a role for you, which happens more frequently than most people think. If you never talk with people at the firms that you want to work at, you’ll never have the opportunity for either of those things to happen. Instead, without networking, you will end up grouped together with hundreds of other applicants fighting for the few spots that are posted publicly online.
Reason 2. Networking will prevent you from taking a job that you would hate
As a senior in college, I was shocked by the number of people I knew accepting positions that they knew very little about. Although I hope that they end up enjoying those jobs and sticking with them, the unfortunate reality is that, statistically speaking, many of them will dislike their jobs and quit as soon as they find new ones.
How does this happen? Most people (as far as I can tell) only research positions by reading things online, going to info sessions, and talking to friends. However, those sources won’t tell you very much about what it would really be like to work in that role. Company websites will never show you the full picture because it’s not in firms’ best interests to do so. Reviews online like Glassdoor are better and certainly helpful to read, but they will never give you the full picture. And friends often base their information on similarly flawed sources.
The best way to learn about what a job would be like is to talk to people doing that job. Do this, and you’ll know all of the reasons why people quit before you get there and become much less likely to do so yourself. Fail to do this, and you might end up like so many college graduates — in a job (or grad school pursuing a job) that they hate and regretting their life decisions.
Reason 3: Networking will improve the quality of your interview
If you network, you’ll both know more about the role than those who don’t and be able to make a better case for why you’re the best person for the job. This is surprisingly important. Firms spend a lot of money and time to hire and train new employees. So, if you take a job and then quit within your first year, the company will likely end up losing money on you. Given that voluntary turnover is a growing problem, businesses look carefully for candidates who seem likely to stick around. If you network, you will have good, clear reasons for wanting the job, which will increase the interviewer’s confidence that you will be a good fit and boost your chances of getting an offer.
Reason 4: Networking can help you build the perfect resume
Another great benefit of networking is learning what companies or graduate schools are looking for and then using that knowledge to improve your resume. For instance, if you talk with someone at your dream firm and they say that having an entrepreneurial mindset is an important characteristic of successful applicants, you might find a startup to work for on the side in order to exhibit that characteristic on your resume. This is the general strategy that I used to get into consulting and business school. A few years before applying for either, I talked with people in the schools and firms I wanted to apply to and asked what they were looking for (i.e. what makes a candidate stand out). This helped me build my resume over time and maximize my chances of getting accepted when I eventually applied.
Reason 5. Networking often explicitly factors into hiring decisions
Often, if there are two candidates for a role that are equally qualified and only one of them has networked with several people at the firm, that candidate will be chosen. The rationale here for the firm might be as simple as, “that candidate has shown greater interest and dedication to the job” or it could also be, “that candidate is more likely to know what they’re getting themselves into” (reason 3). This type of rationale might be intuitive to decide between two equally-qualified candidates, but the reality is that networking can often allow you to get a job over other more-qualified candidates. Is that unfair? Absolutely. Is it the way the world currently works? Unfortunately, yes. The bottom line here is that, although it’s a problematic system that’s biased toward wealthy candidates (more on this in my next piece), networking will often explicitly factor into hiring decisions.
Does networking matter equally in all firms or industries?
It’s challenging to find hard data on this (as few firms are willing to state publicly how networking affects their hiring processes), so I can only speak anecdotally. What I found from talking with people at a range of firms and various industries was that generally, networking matters more at smaller companies than larger ones, and it matters more for less technical roles than for more technical ones. So, if you’re looking for a strategy role at a start-up, your chances will be slim without networking. However, if you’re looking for a software engineering role at Google, you’ll probably be fine going through their standard application process.
That being said, even if you’re pursuing technical roles at large companies, don’t rule out networking quite yet. Even if it’s not taken explicitly into account during the hiring process, the first four reasons to network still apply. In other words, networking will still help you apply for roles that are not publicly posted online, prevent you from accepting jobs that you’ll end up quitting, help you articulate why you want the job, and help you build the perfect resume for that job.
After hundreds of phone calls during which I always asked how much networking factors into hiring decisions, my final takeaway was this: although many firms want it to look like they don’t consider networking (in an effort to seem unbiased), unless the firm publicly states that they don’t take networking into account, they do.
What if I really don’t want to network…
I get it. I was deeply uncomfortable with the idea of having phone calls with strangers as well at the start. I also resisted networking at first because it felt unfair; I felt ashamed about trying to use connections and school alumni to help me get a job. Part of me just wanted to do it completely on my own. However, I soon realized that not networking as a rejection of the system would only disadvantage me and wouldn’t help disrupt that system at all (more on this in my piece on the bias of networking). So, even though I felt uncomfortable networking and disliked that the system existed in the first place, I eventually caved and tried it out. Doing so made a world of a difference.
At the end of the day, everything is a choice. All I would say is that I hope you make an informed choice. If you acknowledge that not networking means putting yourself at a meaningful disadvantage at every stage of your career, and still don’t want to network, all the power to you. However, most people who don’t network haven’t internalized the importance of doing so.
All of this is to say that, if you want to have a fair shot at getting your dream job, your best bet is to start setting up some networking calls.
[1] Kaufman, Wendy. “A Successful Job Search: It’s All About Networking.” NPR, NPR, 3 Feb. 2011, www.npr.org/2011/02/08/133474431/a-successful-job-search-its-all-about-networking.
[2] A photo I took at Case@Brown, a case competition held at Brown University in 2019.
[3] “Professional Networking: A How-To Guide.” Glaucoma Today, Bryn Mawr Communications, glaucomatoday.com/articles/2019-jan-feb/professional-networking-a-how-to-guide?c4src=article%3Asidebar.
[4] Agovino, Theresa. “To Have and to Hold.” SHRM, SHRM, 16 Aug. 2019, www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/all-things-work/Pages/to-have-and-to-hold.aspx.
[5] An estimated pie chart, the only statistical basis for which being that 70–80% of jobs aren’t posted online (source 1). The breakdown between the other categories in the pie chart are arbitrary.
