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Think of how much society is set back because people who have no interest or ability with "networking" aren't given the opportunities that they should have had.

Think of how much society is set back because people who have no interest or ability with "networking" aren't given the opportunities that they should have had. Instead, we end up with the most socially aggressive / self promoting running practically everything (badly).

chrisseaton 8y ago
If you call it 'networking' it sounds bad. If you call it 'getting out there and speaking to people, listening to what their problems, hopes, opinions are, and sharing the same yourself and making a connection to see if you can mutually help each other' then it suddenly sounds like a better thing, doesn't it?
- incompatible 8y ago
  Hmm, not really.
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    Everyone should just work in isolation right? Nobody needs any help or to share any ideas or problems?
    - incompatible 8y ago
      This isn't about working, it's about getting together in cliques to decide who should be offered the best positions, based on mostly irrelevant personality factors.
- fenwick67 8y ago
  Networking isn't talking to people about important things. It's talking to people with the specific goal of moving your career forward. That's what makes chronic networkers insufferable, and those people give networking a bad rap.
  - CharlesW 8y ago
    > Networking isn't talking to people about important things. It's talking to people with the specific goal of moving your career forward. If that's what you think networking is, I can't imagine that you're getting great results. Are you?
    - stephengillie 8y ago
      For about a year, I smoked cigarettes. Taking a smoke break with your boss, and their boss, is one way to be noticed, stick out from the pack, and advance your career. Other methods are healthier.
      - dorchadas 8y ago
        At my former job, you could always tell who'd get the promotions by who smoked with who. It sucked, as a non-smoker, but I eventually fell into the habit of going out with them while they smoked and just talking.
      - jpindar 8y ago
        I wonder if anyone would notice if you 'smoked' an inert substance in a vape pen?
      - drdrey 8y ago
        Healthier example: I met my boss doing group trail runs.
  - twblalock 8y ago
    The way you move your career forward is by talking to people about important things and providing some kind of value to the people you are talking to -- if networking with you does not benefit other people, they won't do it! The motivation may be self-serving, but the outcome is that you help others while you help yourself.
  - eropple 8y ago
    I network all the damn time. I talk to people. I get lunch with new people who I don't know (there's a standing invite in my HN profile for a reason). I don't have some Specific Goal of Moving My Career Forward. I like people, I like meeting people, I like learning about them, and in the future maybe I'll do them a solid or they'll do me one. It pays off, though. And it's fun. But I have never started a conversation (at least, not with somebody I didn't already know well, like my boss) with the Specific Goal of Moving My Career Forward. If that's what you think networking is, you're missing out.
bombingwinger 8y ago
That's silly. Skill acquisition is important for everyone.
KaoruAoiShiho 8y ago
You know how in Pokemon they keep on teaching you "don't tackle your problems alone, learn to depend on your friends?" That's what networking is.
- 0xcde4c3db 8y ago
  That approach requires learning to make friends in the first place. I don't naturally tend to talk to people in that mode. I find most "social" spaces disorienting and exhausting to be in for more than a few minutes; when I do convince myself to go to a party or other social gathering, I tend to get conversation-starters along the lines of "are you okay?". The very few actual friends I've had in my life have mostly been others who are socially awkward, and none of those relationships are still active because either my family moved or theirs did. That is to say: I think there's a lot more variation in this space than most people are prepared to acknowledge.
samontar 8y ago
It isn’t. Someone I know (who hired me at one of my jobs) is an expert with people. He’s had many Successful exits and somehow always has a team that loves to work for him that’s great at their job. Knowing him has led to me discovering way more teams I could work with. It’s great and very helpful to people like me - who are less effective at building that network of people. I think it’s great these people exist. They’ve been a multiplier on what I can do.
- incompatible 8y ago
  So the degree of success of your career may be entirely due to your luck in meeting a person like that. It doesn't seem very efficient, from the point of view of getting the right people into the right positions.
  - samontar 8y ago
    There’s no way around it without an oracle ranking us all at our suitability for a job, unfortunately, and I would question the ability of such a thing to exist, never mind the ethics. Something has to connect people with various skills and I trust people to do this better than anything to be honest. I would imagine that it would be a false efficiency for something else to happen. The number of charlatans in the world is too high and without human filtering I would never participate.
  - BeetleB 8y ago
    >It doesn't seem very efficient It actually isn't. Which is exactly the reason networking is emphasized so much. You generally have to meet many people, with virtually no way to reliably prescreen them to get any benefit out of it. If it were a lot more efficient, it would be a lot easier and there wouldn't be a need to heavily emphasize it.
bfuller 8y ago
It works both ways. Society would be better off if some of the people who have no interest in networking accepted it as a necessary evil and learned how to do it.
BurningFrog 8y ago
You have really misunderstood society. Nobody is "given" these opportunities by some Opportunity Santa. Those who go out and search for opportunities find, create and take them.
- incompatible 8y ago
  It's not a misunderstanding, I'm asking if that's the best way to achieve optimal results. How many social problems are caused by people not being offered opportunities for spurious reasons?
BeetleB 8y ago
>Think of how much society is set back because people who have no interest or ability with "networking" aren't given the opportunities that they should have had. Your frustration is likely borne out of the assumption that people deserve all those opportunities.
purplezooey 8y ago
So true. Seems like this situation has haunted humanity for thousands of years.

chrisseaton 8y ago

If you call it 'networking' it sounds bad. If you call it 'getting out there and speaking to people, listening to what their problems, hopes, opinions are, and sharing the same yourself and making a connection to see if you can mutually help each other' then it suddenly sounds like a better thing, doesn't it?

incompatible 8y ago
Hmm, not really.
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  Everyone should just work in isolation right? Nobody needs any help or to share any ideas or problems?
  - incompatible 8y ago
    This isn't about working, it's about getting together in cliques to decide who should be offered the best positions, based on mostly irrelevant personality factors.
fenwick67 8y ago
Networking isn't talking to people about important things. It's talking to people with the specific goal of moving your career forward. That's what makes chronic networkers insufferable, and those people give networking a bad rap.
- CharlesW 8y ago
  > Networking isn't talking to people about important things. It's talking to people with the specific goal of moving your career forward. If that's what you think networking is, I can't imagine that you're getting great results. Are you?
  - stephengillie 8y ago
    For about a year, I smoked cigarettes. Taking a smoke break with your boss, and their boss, is one way to be noticed, stick out from the pack, and advance your career. Other methods are healthier.
    - dorchadas 8y ago
      At my former job, you could always tell who'd get the promotions by who smoked with who. It sucked, as a non-smoker, but I eventually fell into the habit of going out with them while they smoked and just talking.
    - jpindar 8y ago
      I wonder if anyone would notice if you 'smoked' an inert substance in a vape pen?
    - drdrey 8y ago
      Healthier example: I met my boss doing group trail runs.
- twblalock 8y ago
  The way you move your career forward is by talking to people about important things and providing some kind of value to the people you are talking to -- if networking with you does not benefit other people, they won't do it! The motivation may be self-serving, but the outcome is that you help others while you help yourself.
- eropple 8y ago
  I network all the damn time. I talk to people. I get lunch with new people who I don't know (there's a standing invite in my HN profile for a reason). I don't have some Specific Goal of Moving My Career Forward. I like people, I like meeting people, I like learning about them, and in the future maybe I'll do them a solid or they'll do me one. It pays off, though. And it's fun. But I have never started a conversation (at least, not with somebody I didn't already know well, like my boss) with the Specific Goal of Moving My Career Forward. If that's what you think networking is, you're missing out.

bombingwinger 8y ago

That's silly. Skill acquisition is important for everyone.

KaoruAoiShiho 8y ago

You know how in Pokemon they keep on teaching you "don't tackle your problems alone, learn to depend on your friends?" That's what networking is.

0xcde4c3db 8y ago
That approach requires learning to make friends in the first place. I don't naturally tend to talk to people in that mode. I find most "social" spaces disorienting and exhausting to be in for more than a few minutes; when I do convince myself to go to a party or other social gathering, I tend to get conversation-starters along the lines of "are you okay?". The very few actual friends I've had in my life have mostly been others who are socially awkward, and none of those relationships are still active because either my family moved or theirs did. That is to say: I think there's a lot more variation in this space than most people are prepared to acknowledge.

samontar 8y ago

It isn’t. Someone I know (who hired me at one of my jobs) is an expert with people. He’s had many Successful exits and somehow always has a team that loves to work for him that’s great at their job. Knowing him has led to me discovering way more teams I could work with. It’s great and very helpful to people like me - who are less effective at building that network of people. I think it’s great these people exist. They’ve been a multiplier on what I can do.

incompatible 8y ago
So the degree of success of your career may be entirely due to your luck in meeting a person like that. It doesn't seem very efficient, from the point of view of getting the right people into the right positions.
- samontar 8y ago
  There’s no way around it without an oracle ranking us all at our suitability for a job, unfortunately, and I would question the ability of such a thing to exist, never mind the ethics. Something has to connect people with various skills and I trust people to do this better than anything to be honest. I would imagine that it would be a false efficiency for something else to happen. The number of charlatans in the world is too high and without human filtering I would never participate.
- BeetleB 8y ago
  >It doesn't seem very efficient It actually isn't. Which is exactly the reason networking is emphasized so much. You generally have to meet many people, with virtually no way to reliably prescreen them to get any benefit out of it. If it were a lot more efficient, it would be a lot easier and there wouldn't be a need to heavily emphasize it.

bfuller 8y ago

It works both ways. Society would be better off if some of the people who have no interest in networking accepted it as a necessary evil and learned how to do it.

BurningFrog 8y ago

You have really misunderstood society. Nobody is "given" these opportunities by some Opportunity Santa. Those who go out and search for opportunities find, create and take them.

incompatible 8y ago
It's not a misunderstanding, I'm asking if that's the best way to achieve optimal results. How many social problems are caused by people not being offered opportunities for spurious reasons?

BeetleB 8y ago

>Think of how much society is set back because people who have no interest or ability with "networking" aren't given the opportunities that they should have had. Your frustration is likely borne out of the assumption that people deserve all those opportunities.

purplezooey 8y ago

So true. Seems like this situation has haunted humanity for thousands of years.