A quick primer on Networking

Networking is the art of creating, growing, and nurturing your personal, social, or professional connections.

It usually is a 3-step process:

1. While you are on LinkedIn, you are networking. You interact with someone new, may be leave a comment on one of their posts or updates, or send them a message - that is the first step, seeding.
2. Over time, and after multiple interactions, you create a “brand” recall in their mind. Although you started off as total strangers, but repeated exchanges would help the other person recall your name, or your picture when they stumble across it. This is gardening.
3. Finally, one day you are in need of some help, or guidance, or mentorship. And the person is suitably placed to help you out of this dilemma. You approach them and they assist you - may be connect you to someone they know, get you a job referral, or just provide some life/career counselling. Congratulations! You just reaped the reward for your consistent efforts in the past, aka farming.

What I described above is for one particular test case. The same is true for other aspects or stages of life.

• During school and college, networking with professors might help you get a better letter of recommendation.
• In business schools, networking with your seniors, members of the placement committee, or just the recruiters who come for company presentations, might just create the right first impression.
• In your community, networking with your neighbors will come in handy when you are in a tight spot - may be you need them to babysit your kid for a day, or drive you to the airport.
• At your job, networking with your colleagues (not limited to the ones in your workgroup) might help you understand the larger business picture, leverage some unexplored synergies, or just come to your rescue when you are exploring an internal, horizontal movement.

That being said, a lot of people have no clue how to go about it, and essentially screw things up by doing the exact opposite of what should be done.

#1: Let it be organic. Most people are too pushy. After campus presentations, the most over-enthused of the group would immediately surround the would-be recruiter, heaping them with praises, and later inundating them with senseless questions.

#2: Listen. Networking is 80% listening and 20% talking. If you want to connect with someone, they essentially have something you want. So, listen to them.

#3: Be sincere. I get more than my fair share of admiration and appreciation on social media. And I could not be more thankful. But sometimes, I get messages that seem fabricated. Mostly they are too flattering, and followed by a request. For example, I recently was contacted by someone who said that they religiously follow me on Quora and were wondering if I could help them with a referral. Ordinarily, I would have sent a thank you note and tried my best to. But something was off about the tone of it. So I checked their profile activity, and they neither followed me, nor hadn’t they upvoted any of my content in the past 6 months. I am not a vain person most of the time, but I was offended by their deception. Even if you are faking sincerity, put some effort into it.

#4: Be understanding. Understand that what you are asking for is a “request”. The other person is, under no circumstances, obliged to fulfill it. If you lash back at them if they can’t/don’t help you, it says volumes about your professional maturity.

#5: Don’t always make it about the business (???? ??? ?????? ?? ???, ??? ??? ??? ? ???! (Everyone remembers in times of need, no one when everything’s fine and dandy.))

One of my bosses wrote personalized emails to 300+ of his professional contacts (mostly clients) on New Year’s Eve. It wasn’t mass mailing, with just the name changed. No! He wrote individual mails to all - expressing his gratitude, wishing them another year of good health and happiness, and enclosing one small, personal anecdote - a recap of one of their previous conversations, something that he learnt from them as a professional. He also sent them each a small, custom gift - depending on their tastes - a music CD of their favorite artist, a particular coffee from India etc. The gifts in themselves were not grand, but the sentiment behind them was. He spent more than 150 hours doing this - drafting the mails, picking out the gifts, and posting them. And best of all, he did it all without any expectation of a reward reciprocation - he didn’t ask them for more business, or further referrals.