Do you really have to rely on your networking skills in order to grow in your organization?
This era is of networking. Business have taken to networking in order to connect with their customers because they know that it is the network that they create with their customers that will get them more and more customers. Stats have proven that networking has indeed helped businesses multiply their sales and their profits.
So when businesses have taken to networking, why shouldn’t networking play a role in your growth in an organization. And it is true that networking indeed plays a big role in your career growth in your organization.
If that is the last thing you wanted to hear then, career development is not for you.
When I as a manager, sees a vacant position in my department or, line of business as they call it these days, my worries are about the process that I will have to follow to pick the best person. Interviews, written tests etc. are the normal parts of the process and even after exercising restraints and judicious decision making, I still happen to get the wrong guy into my department. This only marks the beginning of a long and tiring journey in motivating, counseling, reprimanding etc. etc.
Interviews and discussions have more or, less become staged role-plays. The interviewee knows what will be asked and also knows what is the expected response to the question. Impressing an interviewer is not difficult if you are even slightly focused. Though there are extremely talented interviewers who are able to count the pulse of a person just by looking at the way he is responding to a question, most interviewers are not that talented and have to depend on the 1-2-3s of recruitment and interviewing techniques that they have learnt in trainings. A lot of negative aspects of the candidates, hence go un-identified and you end up picking the wrong person. The end-result – CHAOS and TROUBLE.
Why would I want to take that risk, when I have an alternate way of picking the best of the lot?
I would prefer talking to my colleagues and peers in various departments and organizations and ask them to refer candidates they think are the best fit for the role that I have in mind. Professionals, if they are and friends that they are, they would refer people they know and who have a proven track record. Though I am ruling out the possibility of a mis-fit being referred, still I would prefer this channel to the other.
This is where networking comes into the picture. If you have a strong network with your co-workers and superiors and with people in the department that you wish to get into as per your career plan, the likely hood of a referral for you by one of these is much higher and the chances of you getting the role is also much higher.
So wouldn’t you like to network better now?
In a later post we can discuss about what all are the things to bear in mind if you are to successfully network.
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