Networking

“As soon as your face flashes in front of them, they should think of your benefit and your success”

In the days my father was a fresher looking for work, it was considered bad to get a job through a reference and worse if you had many people referring you. The word ‘shifarish’ was like an abuse to the masses. Students, scholars and intellectuals considered it detestable to have any one referring them.

In those days if one would even consider such a thing as networking, they’d get lines like
- “if you are qualified you don’t need to know anyone”
- “if you work you’ll succeed. Not by knowing people” and
- “networking is for those that try to evade hard work”
In those times, this made sense, but the times have changed and how!

In a meeting today my senior manager said, “As soon as your face flashes in front of them, they should think of your benefit and your success”. He encouraged everyone to network, to try to get to know as many people as they can and make positive and lasting impressions.
If I state him out of context to in front of anyone, he can be misunderstood. The thing is that it’s not that he asked everyone to concentrate all their efforts towards networking and most of the time he was talking about hard work, learning and growing. He only highlighted that networking does help and that is a fact.

Gone are the days when talent was the only factor, in determining where you are and where you are going .Now a days if you have a qualification then so will the next person and chances are he or she will have more than just that. There is no substitute of hard work but networking adds on to one’s value and gives one the kind of recognition that plain hard work never can.
This senior manager of mine has changed seven organizations and got all the jobs by reference. Such are the days that who you know can make or break your career. We are in charge of our careers ourselves and need to help others if you want to be at the receiving end of favors at some point. Networking is hard work, but quite imperative these days.
Anyone still trying to follow the textbook? Its time you woke up.