Networking & Referrals

This is a short post but I will eventually write a longer piece on the same topic. I just wanted to get a few thoughts down that have been running through my head today on networking and referrals.

When I think back on my career I've never landed a job coming in cold. What I mean by that is every job I've ever found, I've found because I knew someone. It was either word of mouth, a personal referral or someone I knew working at the company already.

When you come in cold from the outside, the odds of landing a job with a successful company that pays well, are unfortunately stacked against you. I can remember early on in my career being blown away by my managers' attitudes to hiring. I was working for one of the largest companies in networking. Silicon Valley was booming. My first interview was over coffee, talking about music. You see, I already knew this person through other friends working at the company. There was never a question of my skills and how I might fit in with the team.

After progressing within the company I went through a few more managers. My second manager was a very laid back guy but extremely busy. He didn't like to bother himself with "annoyances" like interviews. I remember walking by his desk. He had a stack of resumes about a foot high, untouched. Not an exaggeration by any means. So I asked him if he was going to look at them and schedule any interviews. He briefly glanced at the stack and then looked at me and asked, "Do you have any friends I could interview?" No one ever came in cold from the outside.

In this economy, developing your own network and referrals is more important than ever. Depending on the type of work you are looking for, think of ways you can put yourself into contact (indirectly or directly) with people already involved in what you are looking for.