Networking is a vital skill for advancing your career, but it can also be challenging to maintain your authenticity and integrity while building relationships with potential employers, clients, or collaborators. How do you balance networking and authenticity in your career? Here are some tips to help you navigate this delicate process.
Before you start networking, it's important to have a clear sense of your values, goals, and vision for your career. This will help you identify and connect with people who share your interests, passions, and aspirations, and avoid wasting time or energy on irrelevant or incompatible contacts. Your values will also guide your decisions and actions when you face ethical dilemmas, conflicts, or pressures in your networking interactions.
Be able to articulate your values, goals, an vision of your career based on your mix of understanding how you like to be managed, how you achieve your goals to any assigned tasker, and how you engage your professional colleagues.
One of the most common networking mistakes is to try to be someone you're not, or to pretend to like or agree with everything your interlocutor says or does. This can backfire in several ways: you can come across as insincere, dishonest, or desperate; you can lose your credibility and trustworthiness; or you can compromise your own identity and integrity. Instead of faking it, be yourself and show your genuine personality, opinions, and emotions. This will help you build rapport, trust, and respect with your network, and attract people who appreciate you for who you are.
You are no longer a teenager or undergrad you know yourself because of the following...(1) you know when and why you will say “no thank-you" and know when to get up and leave the room altogether; (2) you know when the professional environment is a good fit for you or know when to leave a toxic work environment; (3) you can spot the difference between unethical but legal and what is clearly illegal; and (4) know what words work for you when articulating your experience, your thoughts, and the vision about the professional you know you are.
Networking is not just about asking for favors, referrals, or opportunities; it's also about offering value, support, and assistance to your contacts. This means being generous, helpful, and proactive in sharing your knowledge, skills, resources, or connections with others, without expecting anything in return. Offering value will demonstrate your professionalism, expertise, and generosity, and will make you a more attractive and memorable contact. It will also create a positive impression and a sense of reciprocity, which can lead to more opportunities and collaborations in the future.
Your contacts know your creditability and that translates into trust which cannot be bought but grows and strengthens over time. Further personal congrats help reinforce your interactions from asking a favor to sending a personal congratulations gift...That in turns changes a close contact into a trusted confidant which is always valuable.
Another key aspect of networking and authenticity is to listen and learn from your contacts. This means being curious, attentive, and respectful of their perspectives, experiences, and needs, and asking open-ended questions that show your interest and engagement. Listening and learning will help you understand your contacts better, discover their pain points, challenges, or goals, and find ways to add value or offer solutions. It will also help you avoid assumptions, judgments, or biases that can harm your relationships or reputation.
I find that learning about the individual before you speak to them makes it so much easier to bring genuine curiosity to the conversation. This keeps the dialogue going smoothly, versus those awkward moments where you find yourself wondering what else there is to say. It also helps you to understand any perspectives they may share in the moment.
This is based on reliable trust and the ability to talk about anything without fear or ill comfort. But you must listen in two ways...(1) Answer the question or address the point being raised; then (2) Address the thinking behind the thought that inspired the question. If you don’t learn from these two points you might have to take some serious time to write your respective thoughts on both ends to better understand the crux of the conversation you may be trying to have....
The last tip to balance networking and authenticity is to follow up and follow through with your contacts. This means staying in touch, expressing your gratitude, providing feedback, or updating them on your progress or achievements. It also means honoring your commitments, delivering on your promises, or fulfilling your obligations. Following up and follow through will show your reliability, accountability, and professionalism, and will strengthen your relationships and reputation. It will also keep you on the radar of your contacts, and increase the chances of getting referrals, recommendations, or opportunities from them.
When I setup meetings for network, it's always important to me that I go into that meeting without an agenda. I genuinely want to learn more about the person/people I'm meeting with, what's important to them, and share a little bit about who I am as well. When you don't setup meetings with solely self serving purposes, they tend to go better and be a lot more enjoyable. I can smell it from a mile away when people want to setup a meeting with me for the wrong reasons.