Planting Seeds
As unemployment rises, fear is growing among university students who approach graduation, realizing they have no clue what to do next. Despite the years students spend earning degrees and maintaining good grades, students are not taught one of the most critical tools for building a career: the power of networking.
Senior health care executive Jay Anderson discusses how networking isn’t optional but rather is essential. Throughout his career, Anderson has held leadership roles in hospitals. He was the former chief operating officer of The Ohio State University Medical Center, and now he works as a senior executive at the international collaborative at Northwestern Medicine in London. Anderson reflects on starting at the bottom and the process of building his network to become a person that people want a connection with, and what he looks for when someone reaches out.
Why is networking underemphasized? According to Anderson, networking is heavily underemphasized because, for one, it's a soft skill, which makes it difficult to measure or define. Unlike the structure of hard sciences such as chemistry or math, where there is a clear solution to a problem, networking can be easily undervalued and not leveraged effectively. Second, it’s something that students don’t really want to be true. As Anderson explains, “It feels like I went to school, I got good grades, got a degree, and worked really hard, so now someone should hire me. That’s what feels fair.” Finally, networking is hard to teach. It's not easy to teach someone how to walk into a room and build connections..
Despite this, networking remains essential. “Someone has to choose you,” Anderson says. “You have to plant a seed to get something going, so it has to go beyond just a good résumé. You got all the pieces, but to get the puzzle to work, you have to do networking.”
How do you start building a network to get a job? Anderson expresses how it is essential to reflect on these questions. “Figure out either specifically what you’re interested in doing, or specifically what skills you want to be using, or you are curious enough to say I don’t know exactly what I want to do, but I want to work with good smart people that are engaging and that will help me grow, and I want to figure out what industry I really like.” Once those boxes are checked, then you start building your network.
Anderson also stresses the importance of having multiple networks. You want a network for school, hometown, church, family, jobs — basically every area in your life where you have engaged with some community. “Sit down with a glass of wine and work your way through all the circles of people that you know and the people that your people know. Not all connections are direct.”
Glimpses of Your Skills
Sometimes you have to give your network glimpses of what you can do. Taking those opportunities to demonstrate your strengths allows your network to see your skills in action. Anderson encourages students to take advantage of opportunities where others can see their abilities firsthand. For example, a finance major involved with a campus organization could volunteer to manage the group’s budget, delivering strong results and exceeding its expected performance. Now you have shown your experience, and they see your competence and reliability.
Offer your skills in the club you’re involved in. If a friend reaches out to you for advice, help, or to look over something, these are all opportunities because even though you are helping them, they get to see your skills live. “Do favors for your network.”
Navigating Networking Conversations
Networking conversations can be difficult. You don’t want to come off too forward and make the person uncomfortable. It is important to be subtle and avoid being rude or intrusive. Anderson notes that you should rarely outright ask someone to do something for you. The better approach in a conversation is to focus on them, asking questions and expressing your interest and experience in the topic. This plants subtle seeds so that you don’t put them on the spot, but you make it clear that it is something you are interested in doing.
Once trust is built within that relationship, you can then go back and discuss how you are interested in pursuing that job and what their advice would be for approaching it. Anderson says, “I like the phrase, just take a bet on me and then be ready to work really hard. Because they don’t need you, they need a job done.” You want to be known as a reliable worker who will do any task given.
Perspective of the Connection
Anderson offers a useful perspective, as he is often reached out to and is someone that people use as a connection. He discusses how he has an inbox titled “Job Searches,” where he keeps people who are interesting, have value, and have connections that can be tapped into later. Anderson explains that when someone reaches out to him, he will ask them to complete a task such as sending an email that includes the exact role they think they would be good for, with their CV and résumé attached.
“I do it this way because I need to put some of the onus back on them, because I need to see if they’re serious or not,” Anderson says. He explains that “most people don’t follow up because the vast majority of folks want to get a job but don’t want to do the work. And if they’re not willing to do the work to get the job, then I don’t want to hire them.”
It is important not to make your connection look bad, because once they recommend you for a position, you are now a representation of them as well. Anderson notes that “once you decide to lean in and leverage your network, you have to respect it.”
Continuing the Process
Finally, Anderson advises that once you get a job, the process of networking does not stop. It is important to continue networking within your job. There should never be a time where you are not planting those seeds, because if an opportunity comes up that you would be a good fit for, you want their first thought to be you.
Anderson notes, “What you don’t want to have happen is an opportunity comes up that you would be interested in and no one knew you would be interested in doing it.” Another difficult aspect of networking is attending networking events designed to build connections. Going into those events, it is important to remember that everyone is uncomfortable, so be the person who starts a conversation. That also makes you memorable. Although it can be awkward, you have to do it.
Conclusion
Overall, networking is essential to creating a solid career. As Anderson says, “You can’t wish the importance of this away.” Some have to work harder at it than others, but it is something you have to be able to do. Ideas, ambitions and dreams can be lost because of a lack of ability to network and build connections that can help you reach the next step. “You come to find that really good ideas die because they never got picked up by anybody and they never found a network to leverage.”
Things don’t always work out the way you planned, so it is important to have a large enough network to reach out to when doors close. Most importantly, you have to start this process early, because networking takes time. “It always takes two to three times as long as people hope or think it will, and that’s because the network moves at the pace of the network, not the same pace that you want it to move.” Create your network, be proactive, and follow up when you use it, and be ready to work hard when your network follows through.
