It’s Friday and it’s Networking Pet Peeve Day at my desk.
To network effectively, it can’t all be about you. Here are two real scenarios for our Networking Pet Peeve Day illustration:
1) Someone you know loses his/her job and then seeks your advice and assistance on looking for a new position. You then provide that assistance and connect him/her to other business people and float a couple of open job opportunities to this unemployed person. You continue to keep your eyes and ears open in a genuine effort to help him/her, and then one day you tell this person of a new position that you feel would be a good fit for them and are told, “Oh, I started my new job three weeks ago.”
Result: That person will never get help from me again.
2) Someone you helped find a new position, they worked it for a couple of years, then they contact you asking for your help to find another position—without having had the slightest bit of contact with you the past two years. Make no mistake, I have no problem with them trying to find a better job, but this reaching out “only when you need something” doesn’t fly. I am all for lending a hand to assist someone, but where was this person the last two years? You can’t go that long and then show up out of the blue asking for something. It’s kinda like the bratty teenager who doesn’t lift a finger to do anything to help around the house or pick up his/her room…and then have both hands out at Christmas saying “Give it to me!”
Result: That person will never get help from me again.
Networking Conclusion: A two-way street must exist.
Alas, for those of you heading into the final pre-April 15 work weekend, Godspeed!
*****
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