I once heard a story about high executives of a big company discussing the key decisions that brought them to their current job. One of them said: "Despite all we talked about, we have to agree that 30% of the jobs are granted through networking". This comment induced a brief moment of silence, which was broken by a vigorous reply: "I disagree, the right number would be 100%" another one said, and they all started laughing.
This anecdote maybe reflects the importance that we, millennials, give to networking. Curiously enough, many of us do not even know how to define networking, and those who think are capable, are also the one who are making other questions. Am I doing it with the right people? Or at all? In my opinion, most of all are capable of finding answers to these questions, all we need to do is a directed reflection. Many people seem to believe that networking consists in establishing a relationship with professionals in your field with a position of power so that your name will pop out in their head when they have to fill your dreamed position. Although this is a kind of networking that (sadly) still exists, how many of us can actually afford to meet or have dinner with the company CEO?
Networking consists more in the establishing reciprocal relationship between colleagues, co-workers (lateral links ), and superiors (vertical links) so that they can feed you with the information you’ll need to achieve your own goals. Maybe, it is more important to tell your colleagues about a job opportunity you saw on twitter or to listen to the future goals of your co-workers from a different department is telling you about. In a world with an astonishing amount of information available, we seem to forget that people is one of the most valuable resources, but not because they can hire you but because they can teach you, they can feed you with well-processed valuable information, they can help you grow, and you should want to help them too. Beyond the "Try to be friend with as many powerful people" thing, networking is also quite a lot of the good old "caring for each other" thing, something that sadly is getting lost in the modern and highly connected, world.