How Proactive Networking Will Prepare You For The Inevitable

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

Years ago, someone said something to me that felt profound: The person who gets ahead isn’t always the smartest or the hardest worker (although those are great qualities to have). The person who gets ahead is the one who remains alert to opportunity. Sometimes, those opportunities are internal to your organization. Usually, however, they are external.

When I interviewed Dave Opton, founder of ExecuNet, for my podcast, Job Search Radio, Opton remarked that 70% of his company’s members told him networking was the “critical factor” in their job search — and those connections often began with someone they didn’t know previously.

If you are like most employees, you have been keeping your head buried in your work. You are focused on doing your job well. Maybe you are taking a course or two toward a better degree or certification. You are placing your effort on working your way up the ladder at your current firm rather than doing the one thing that will be most helpful to you when the next layoff or recession occurs: networking proactively.

Most people start networking once engaged (or reengaged) in a job search. Is it any wonder that people don’t respond to messages from former colleagues or friends whom they haven’t heard from in years? They know the intention of the contact is to “network” or “pick their brain.” As Marlon Brando said in his role as Don Corleone in The Godfather, “We’ve known each…