Posts tagged ‘relationships’
“Networks” are growing…but what about relationships?
In a recent piece in the New York Times Preoccupations section, Jon Picoult wrote an article entitled, “Networks Too Big for Their Own Good,” about getting an edge in the hiring process by both leveraging your mutual colleagues for candidate referrals and to “leave no stone unturned” and move outside the boundaries of your network to find great candidates. Just as one can find good news about the economy of the failed state of Somalia if you look hard enough, I agree that leaving no stone unturned can, at times, surface new candidates, or even new job opportunities if you are looking for a new position. However, ask yourself what you prefer – a strong candidate on paper whom you don’t know or share any mutual colleagues or friends, or a strong candidate with whom you know people in common and can perform your due diligence on without checking the proverbial “references” that are rarely insightful for numerous reasons.
Picoult mostly discredits candidates through “someone you know” because networks that have grown too large, now encompassing weak connections to constitute relationships. With the proliferation of social media and public databases of resumes and profiles, the signal to noise level on those sites cheapens the experience for all involved. Users who are connecting with too many people, sometimes greater than 10,000+ , have no ability to offer you a trusted introduction. This is true.
It is only when dealing with an introduction, that is trusted from all three people involved, can you make a true impact. Meeting someone online and then getting an intro from them is better than a cold call, but its still lower than a snake’s ass in a wagon rut, as they say in the country. Numerous books, Harvard Business Review case studies, Forbes and Fortune magazine articles have previously stated you already know everyone you need to know to make you successful, all you need to do is to mine those relationships better, cultivating the ones where you can offer the greatest value, while benefiting yourself at the same time. At the end, it’s the relationship that really matters.
