Recently on LinkedIn, someone wrote a letter that asked, in effect, why, when someone asks a question, the replies are either platitudes or brief.
My response was to tell the questioner to be thankful for any kind of response since he was probably connected to many people with whom he had no relationship and that these people were taking time out of busy lives to help him.
The question has caused me to correct a misimpression you probably have about the value of your LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and other networks.
When LinkedIn was formed, it had the idea that you should only connect with your friends and business associates.
They still encourage the same thing but the members have a different idea; they believe you should try to connect with anyone who might be able to help them in some way at any time in the future.
The result is that we are all connected to people with whom we have no real relationship.
As of today, I have 1,954 direct connections that connect me to 10,157,900+ people worldwide. As recruiters go, that’s pretty good but not extraordinary. I do not connect with other recruiters and have a few, but not many, connections outside of the United States.
Generally, I do not request connections. Instead, people reach out to me and have done so since I joined LinkedIn many years ago.
How many of these people do you think would be willing to help me? How many of your connections do you think would help you get a good connection with their employer or with someone that they knew?
Probably very few.
© The Big Game Hunter, Inc. Asheville, NC 2008, 2016, 2020
ABOUT 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. His work involves career coaching, all as well as executive job search coaching, job coaching, and interview coaching. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with more than 1900 episodes, and is a member of The Forbes Coaches Council.
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