The Importance of Networking

“If you take me out of it, I find 'six degrees' to be a beautiful concept that we should try to live by. It's about compassion and responsibility for everyone on the planet.”

-        Kevin Bacon

The conventional wisdom of Job Transition is that most people will find their next opportunity through their network.  Let’s be clear…that isn’t everyone, so don’t give up on pursuits with job postings and recruiters.  It is also important to define ‘ Your Network’ in this case.  Your Network is not just who you know.  Your network needs to be who you know, who they know, who their friends know, and so on. 

In the late 1990’s a social parlor game started to form that was called ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon’ or ‘Bacon’s Law’.  In this game, one person would choose an arbitrary actor and then connect them to another actor via a film they were in together and repeat this process until landing on a film that included Kevin Bacon.  The theory of the game is that any two humans on the planet are only six or fewer acquaintances apart.

You have to channel your inner Kevin Bacon.  With the theory of ‘Bacon’s Law’ on your side, you are only 6 connections away from everyone on Earth.  Now the trick is how do you unlock this power and put it to work for you.  Time, money and focus are all in limited amounts.

I suggest you start writing out a list of people in your current Network.  This list will include:

• People you have worked with,

• People that you have met through work,

• Relatives,

• Friends,

• Neighbors,

• Parents of your kids friends,

• Etc.

Now you take this list and start to make inquiries to these folks.  There are a couple things to ask.  First and foremost, get the word out that you are actively seeking a new opportunity.  Much of this Job Transition process is going to involve the coordinated timing of a couple events.  Your availability, a companies need and these two things finding each other.  You can not create the opportunity, so you need to be open and ‘on the market’ when the right one surfaces.

The second thing you do with your network is you start to reach out and ask about setting up a time to meet for coffee, lunch, a beer or whatever social convention works for you.  Meeting in person is much better, but harder to schedule and a bit more of an ask.  You can meet over the phone and virtually, and in some cases that will be the most logical option due to distance and/or time.  The face-to-face session though gives you some much needed social interaction, helps you be more human in the situation with the person and will often result in a longer meeting that might yield more brainstorming networking ideas.   We will talk more about this meeting in the next chapter.

The outcome is to get introductions to other people.  Recognize that you are asking these people to put themselves out there for you a bit.  They are making an ask of their network on your behalf.  Be sure you represent yourself well and that this reflects well back on your connection that made the introduction.  You want to use this first person’s meeting to open yourself up to some possible key people in their network.  Then you hope to open up a friend of a friend’s networks, and so on.  You can see the Kevin Bacon analogy at work. 

Linked In and other social media platforms can be a huge assistant in this effort.  Never before have we been able to reach out to so many people so quickly.  Let alone the fact that we can now see who they might be connected with.  You can start to play Bacon’s Law in reverse.  Find someone that is ‘Hiring’ for a position that looks like a fit and see if you can backtrack to someone that you know. 

Network, network and network some more.  That will need to be your mantra.  This is part of the ‘work’ of the job transition effort.  You are in sales and the product you are selling is yourself.  How do you find the right ‘customers’ for the value you can bring?  It’s a numbers game to some extent and the broader you cast your net, the more potential fish (opportunities) you will bring into the boat.  The goal isn’t to just find any opportunity, but hopefully the right opportunity where you will enjoy the position and the company will appreciate what you bring to their business efforts.