You Need to Stop Networking
Stop collecting contacts. Start building relationships.
In this essay (5 min read):
Why the “shark circle” is a waste of time
Why you should ignore traditional networking advice
Why being bad at something might help you get a job
Networking is Awful and Everyone Knows It
When I was getting my MBA at the University of Notre Dame, we had something we called “the shark circle,” or “the circle of death.”
Chances are, you’ve experienced it too.
It’s the circle that forms around a recruiter at a networking event.
Or, if you’ve never been to a formal networking event, you’ve probably been part of this circle at a party. There’s often one person telling a story, and everyone else is either trying to get that person’s attention or trying to jump in with their own addendum to the story.
In the words of Simon and Garfunkel, “people talking without speaking, people hearing without listening.”
Networking is the worst.
You should stop.
Like right now.
Stop Treating Networking Like Climbing a Ladder
During my MBA program, I interned at JP Morgan Chase. It was my first time working in a skyscraper. I’d spent the first 5 years of my career working in an office with only 100 people.
And I didn’t really know how to approach networking.
A lot of the other interns focused on making connections with senior leaders at the bank. They’d organize coffee chats with the heads of prestigious teams and try to find high-level sponsors who could recommend them for a job.
But I had a hunch that this didn’t really matter. The senior leaders didn’t hand out job offers. Your boss did.
Instead of obsessing over coffee chats, I looked for opportunities to work with people.
I did interviews for the internal newsletter. I organized a mini-conference on SEO in NYC. I joined projects involving as many teams as possible.
But the most valuable relationships happened from the quiet moments with my team.
One of my favorite memories involved my teammate and summer mentor, whose last name was Mendoza. Some of the other MBA interns from schools like Penn and NYU gave me flak for going to Notre Dame (even though it’s a top 30 school, cost half the price, and led to the same exact job…).
So, as a joke I asked my coworker to spend an entire networking call with one of these students talking about how great a school Notre Dame was.
He didn’t disappoint. He spent the entire call name dropping Notre Dame, while I sat opposite him trying not to laugh. He nearly said his dad founded the business school, aptly named the Mendoza College of Business. Alas, we didn’t take it that far. But it was still glorious.
It was moments like these that made the summer.
It didn’t feel like networking. It just felt like working with people and getting to know them.
The Best Networking Doesn’t Feel Like Networking
Looking back, many of my opportunities came from relationships rather than networking.
In college, a professor hired me after getting to know me on debate trips and other excursions.
More recently, I was asked to be an advisor for a tech startup, because someone remembered a volunteer project we’d worked on six years earlier.
I even ended up at JP Morgan Chase because I had coffee with a recruiter when I wasn’t particularly interested in working for a bank.
During my summer internship at the bank, I got a full-time offer for a number of reasons. Apparently, I did very well on my summer project, but I’m sure that some of it had to do with social dynamics.
Some notable moments included helping my profanity-loving Australian coworker negotiate with a bunch of hardnosed lawyers, getting beers and watching soccer with my boss at a local dive bar, and showing tenacity by trying hard and still losing 4 or 5 games of table tennis in a row to the internship recruiter.
You still have to do the work. That’s table stakes. (Another horrible bit of MBA-jargon for you).
But the thing is, lots of people can do the work. So, how do you actually stand out?
What people remember are the human moments. The beers, the table tennis, the road trips, and the honest conversations.
It’s the hypothetical airport test played out in real life.
We don’t always actually get stuck with our coworkers at an airport, but we do still get stuck with them at a desk for 8 hours a day.
In other words, it’s not really about networking. It’s about building relationships.
5 Minutes Standing in the Circle. 5 Years Building the Relationship.
Which brings us back to the shark circle. That’s why it feels so icky. It’s just a bunch of people standing around using each other and being used.
I never stayed in that circle very long. I’d always just share one quick chat, make my name known, and set up a 1:1 call with the recruiter at another time.
5 or 10 minutes. Honestly, I don’t think I could have survived much longer than that.
But it’s okay if you can’t stay in the circle very long.
Because time is on your side.
The opportunity doesn’t come in the circle. It comes later in the phone call with the recruiter.
It doesn’t come from the random coffee chat with a senior leader.
It comes from the hours of showing your coworkers that you’re nice to work with and that you genuinely care about them as people.
It’s not about collecting meetings with important people. It’s about making natural connections with people through shared work, shared fun, and shared interests.
So, in the end, I guess maybe the title of this essay doesn’t tell the full story. You can’t totally stop networking.
But you can stop treating it like a transaction. Or a ladder to climb.
Showing a genuine interest in other people won’t necessarily get you a job right away. But it can’t hurt, and it will lead to more opportunities 5 or 10 years down the line.
At the very least, if all else fails, you can always just try losing really badly in table tennis.
Want to read more like this?
Here’s one of my favorites.
Business for Humans: The Principles of Hospitality
What my parents’ meeting at Disneyland, Michelin-star restaurants, and my job cleaning toilets taught me about making business feel human
I absolutely agree with this advice. I received the same in my master's. I tried once to go for some networking event where all econ/business/consulting folks had come. I had not clue plus i did not want to fake interest. So in the end i just had macaroons and left;) Over time all the research positions, co-authorship i landed was due to personal rapport i developed. sometimes over just a question i asked, at times a casual coffee. It might work for other people, but i prefer the genuineness as it makes me feel at ease while working and also being honest to myself and the other person who is investing in this partnership as well. Great piece! P.S. I also learnt to hone job search skills and professional interaction tips from friend from NYU biostat dept. who has always been supportive. Nice to see its mention.