Why Don’t Wide Yet Shallow Networks Work Well While Searching for Jobs?

Indeed, today’s world prompts us to build wide but shallow networks in our professional development.

We regularly lurk at LinkedIn and other social media and check our number of followers. Many of us invite new people to our circle after every event we participate in. This kind of casual expansion rarely amounts to real business development networking strategies, since quantity alone does very little for the quality of the relationships involved. We feel accomplished every time we see an extensive number of likes under our update on social media.

As a result, it gives us a feeling that we are building a network. And indeed, we do become more visible and build some form of a network this way. However, it is shallow and has limited utility.

At the same time, together with the development of the online communities, we get fewer and fewer options to build deep networks. Since the breakout of the corona crisis, meeting people close to us in person has become harder than ever. 

Meanwhile, relations have loosened and it has become a standard to dodge responding to emails. However, if you are looking for new career options, you need to care for the depth of your network.

Indeed, this is true even if it is hard and requires extra effort. Here is why.

Why Is Asking for a Favor Harder Than It Seems?

While asking a friend to ask around for jobs or recommend you for a job in their network, what do you really ask for? Well, it is not only about taking the time to ask around. While making you this favor, they will also need to get out of their comfort zone for you! And, that’s much more to ask for than just a few phone calls.

Namely, your friend will need to use their own personal brand and connections built over the years. They must convince their employer or coworkers that you are a worthy, competitive candidate for the job interview. They need to use the trust that they managed to build throughout their professional careers.

Therefore, don’t expect a reply if you barely know someone. Someone you spoke to once, or haven’t spoken to in twenty years, likely won’t reply about your career. That said, research by Flynn and Lake, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and summarized by Stanford Graduate School of Business, found that people consistently overestimate by about 50 percent how many people they would need to ask before getting a yes, since they underestimate the social pressure a direct request creates to comply — so it may still be worth asking, even when a reply feels unlikely.

What Happens When Your Networking Strategies Go Sideways?

One important thing to remember is that strategic networking is a form of a game. While in private life treating every contact as a calculated act of social exchange is not welcome, in professional life you need to always keep your long-term goals in mind. For this reason, it is good to keep track of who belongs to your vertical versus horizontal network and try to avoid lateral connections. 

What we mean by that is contacts somewhat in between vertical and horizontal directions. These casual contacts absorb a lot of your time, yet they never grow deep enough to help you in need. 

For instance, if you join Friday Afternoon Drinks every Friday after working hours and invest a few hours to chitchat with your colleagues, you might think that you build real contacts over time. And yet, these contacts might turn out to be too superficial when it comes to helping you in critical situations.

It is better to minimize the amount of time spent per person when it comes to horizontal connections and maximize the time per person when it comes to vertical connections. In this way, you will avoid the grey zone in between and stop wasting your precious time on people whom you cannot count on.

What’s the Biggest Mistake Job Hunters Make With Strategic Networking?

So, why do some people have a huge problem looking for jobs despite being experts in the field, and having lots of coworkers and collaborators? Well, it is because they misunderstand what vertical network is.

In fact, there is a great difference between a coworker and a real contact. You might be working with someone for years and years, only to discover that they don’t care about your professional career at all and won’t move a finger for you. Or, they will even put logs to your feet instead.

So, when does your coworker become a real contact? You can count them in at a point when they start mentoring you. And, it is better to have 5 real mentors than 50 colleagues who don’t care about your professional development.

And as a matter of fact, every successful person needs vertical network in their close environment. Even influencers who seemingly can live of from their following, usually have a network of mutual support behind the scenes. 

They closely collaborate with other influencers, visit each other’s social media, recommend each other’s content, mentor each other in private. Indeed, in the long term, building a career without a vertical network is almost impossible.