What College Doesn’t Teach You About Building a Network

Recently, I spoke to a group of students at Boston University’s College of Communication about how to navigate the tricky job market after graduation from lessons I learned in researching my book, There Is Life After College.

At one point, the conversation turned to networking, and I was peppered with questions about a Catch-22 new graduates typically face: how do they build a professional network if they never held a full-time job?

It’s a question I get often from soon-to-be or new college graduates who envision building a network as another hoop to jump through, much like the hoops they navigated getting into college—taking the SAT, acing college-prep classes in high school, joining clubs, and performing community service to bolster their applications.

In other words, they imagine building a network as a transaction: trade business cards, blast out LinkedIn invites, shake as many hands as possible at alumni events. They don’t see networking where it’s most helpful, especially to people just starting out—as an experience to learn or develop relationships over time.

New college graduates envision building a network as another hoop to jump through, much like the hoops they navigated getting into college.

When it comes to building a network, I told the students to follow the advice of Wharton Professor Adam Grant, who recommends becoming an expert at something first and then people will want to be part of your network. But again it’s a Catch-22: someone starting out doesn’t have much expertise in anything after all.

Here’s what I told the students in Boston about starting their network. It’s advice that might be useful for any of us trying to build or expand our network throughout life.

Ask for their career story

College offers plenty of opportunities to network with alumni who had the same major. Internships and part-time jobs land you in situations where you will work with people of various generations who are already doing the jobs you might want someday. In such circumstances, instead of asking alumni or coworkers for routine career advice, ask them to tell you their career stories.

People love to talk about how they got to where they are today. In doing so, you will get the advice you were initially seeking but will also hear how they construct their narratives. Listen for how they make the connections between what they learned and where they learned it, and ultimately how they applied their learning in different jobs.

Use them as an inside guide to an organization

If you’re a candidate for a job and someone at that organization is in your network, instead of asking them to put in a good word for you, ask them for lessons that only insiders can provide: the best departments to work for, bosses to avoid, and strategies that the organization is pursuing that could help you stand out in an interview.

Also look to people in your network who used to work at the organization you’re considering and ask them the same questions. There’s another reason to seek out former employers: what are they doing now and did that previous job help them get there.

This approach is particularly useful for college students searching for internships. Internships have shifted from a nice-to-have line on a résumé to a critical component to an undergraduate’s career. Students I interviewed for my book said they found internships by networking with classmates or by participating in on-campus clubs and activities.

I’m often asked if unpaid internships are worth it if students can afford financially to do them. I usually encourage potential interns to find out two things if they are considering an unpaid internship. One, be sure you won’t be performing just menial work. Two, confirm that interns who had worked at the employer before were quickly hired into paying jobs either there or somewhere else. Both questions could be asked of insiders from your network.

Less is more

Students seem to think the size, not the quality of their networks matters the most. I’m amazed after I speak to students how many e-mail me or send LinkedIn connections having never met me after the talk or even asked a question during it. I understand most people are just a click away now, but we also know that a vast majority of those e-mails are ignored.

Instead students should focus on building the foundation of a network that will last them a lifetime. Eventually they’ll get the CEO of a company in their network, but that person doesn’t need to be on the ground floor. Instead, students should focus on adding people to the network who know them best: other students, professors, supervisors from internships, co-workers (even from campus jobs).

Starting out with a smaller, better-connected network also allows you to more easily curate it. Activating your network is critical in those first years after college—talking to them on a regular basis to seek advice and help (and not just an occasional e-mail), a hand-written card, and perhaps even an in-person lunch or coffee. That curation will prove critical as you build the network in your twenties.

Networking is important but the more we make it into a task, a job, or a chore, the less useful it becomes to us. As an example, take networking events, which college alumni associations love to host over the forthcoming winter break. As Adam Grant pointed out, no one actually mingles at these events. Instead, we just end up hanging out with old friends.

Jeffrey Selingo is author of There Is Life After College: What Parents and Students Should Know About Navigating School to Prepare for the Jobs of Tomorrow. You can follow his writing here, on Twitter @jselingo, on Facebook, and sign up for free newsletters about the future of higher education at jeffselingo.com.

He is a regular contributor to the Washington Post’s Grade Point blog, a professor of practice at Arizona State University, and a visiting scholar at Georgia Tech's Center for 21st Century Universities.