Admit It. Your Networking Isn’t Working

Admit It. Your Networking Isn’t Working

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

Who Gets Your Attention?

I am LinkedIn member 7653.

Every day, a few times a day, I log into LinkedIn and do some work. I am a (former) headhunter and coach. I used to find people for clients to fill positions. I researched people and opportunities. I suspect many of you are doing the same thing.

I rarely request a connection; I use a tool and my efforts in person to find people to talk with. Even without making an effort to connect, as of today, I have over 28000 first-level connections despite the fact I will not accept a connection request from a recruiter or from a profile that looks to me like it is the profile of a spammer or scammer.

What is so stunning to me is that in my network, there are many people I have never heard from again after receiving a connection request!

Thus, no matter where you are in the employment space, a corporate or agency recruiter, or talent, it is no wonder you lurch from situation to situation trying to recruit people or find a job and it feels like you are starting from scratch all the time.

What you are doing with your network is treating it like an umbrella that you carry around all the time. The forecast is sunny and temperatures in the 90’s. You have an umbrella with you!

But let me offer a different metaphor.

You put $1000 in a safe and do nothing with it for 2 years.

Is it worth less to you after 2 years (YES)?

Has it’s purchasing power declined (YES)?

Is the money less valuable (YES)?

The value of a network decays far more quickly than money in a safe to the point of being only accidentally having value when you need it.

“But it takes time to nurture your network,” you whine, I mean explain.

Yes, that is true.

AND when you need your network, you want money in your safe, don’t you?

Thus, it is important to do things to maintain contact with people, not with stupid messages like, “Thanks for the post,” that seems to be the new vogue judging by the messages I receive after submitting an article.

Create real, regular and quality opportunities and act on them. Those few minutes will be worth a lot to you when the next recession arrives.

 

© The Big Game Hunter, Inc. Asheville, NC 2015, 2023

A Management Lesson from Coach K

ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. He is hired to provide No BS Career Advice globally. That can involve job search, hiring staff, management, leadership, career transition and advice about resolving workplace issues. Schedule a discovery call at my website, www.TheBigGameHunter.us

He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 2500 episodes.

I do a livestream on LinkedIn, and YouTube (on the JobSearchTV.com account) Tuesdays at 1 PM Eastern. You can send your questions about job search, hiring better, management, leadership or to get advice about a workplace issue to me via messaging on LinkedIn or in chat during the approximately 30-minute show.

Website: www.TheBigGameHunter.us (schedule a paid coaching session or free discovery call)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/TheBigGameHunter

Courses: www.TheBigGameHunter.us/courses

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