Our approach to networks and networking begins with a basic ethical emphasis: You must be completely honest with both yourself and others when seeking employment or advancing your career. While you can learn to play new roles for new situations/ such role playing is a form of acting out scripts that are unfamiliar to most people. Such role players eventually will be discovered for what they really are - individuals who may behave very differently from the role they learned to temporarily play in order to get a job interview/ offer, or advancement. Once they get the job and begin displaying their normal patterns of behavior that have little relationship to the roles they played in getting the job/ they may experience on-the-job difficulties that will require something more than an additional round of newly acquired role playing behaviors. Indeed/ their employer may discover that he or she has once again been deceived by a job applicant who learned all the "ins" and "outs" of getting a job interview and offer.
Our approach to networks and networking is also practical. We go beyond examples of successful networking or listings of networking sources to provide you with the basic building blocks for identifying, developing/ and using your own networks in the process of finding employment and advancing your career. Our concepts are defined so they can be translated into practical use. In so doing, we include models and examples designed to build key networking skills. Once you translate these concepts into practical use by following the models and examples, you should be able to make networking a permanent part of your job and career behavior. You need not develop a new personality nor become a manipulative individual intent on making others do things your way.
BEYOND ROLE PLAYING
Most job search advice is based on a very simple principle that makes the job search both easy and difficult for most people: learn to play different roles for different situations. For some people, role playing is easy; they learn the expectations of others, copy examples, and change their behavior accordingly. Consequently, if employers want to see candidates who are energetic, competent, and likeable, then one should dish out energy, competence, and likeability on resumes and in interviews by the way one writes (use action verbs and focus on achievements), talks (use positives and be enthusiastic), and appears in person (dress for success).
While this role approach makes sense because it is designed to meet employer's expectations - and at times exceed them - this approach is also very difficult for individuals to follow precisely because it requires role playing which does not come naturally to many people. To be told to acquire a temporary set of new behaviors to take on stage before individuals with Hie power to hire is beyond both the motivation and capacity of most individuals. It simply does not come naturally to most individuals who are honest and decent people
Such role playing also borders on being unethical sales tactics. Emphasizing form over substance, such role playing does not reveal the individual's real qualifications nor project future performance in meaningful ways. Worst of all, this approach results in canned and meaningless resume language ("Enjoy working with people") and stock answers to interview questions ("My education helped prepare me...") that raise troubling questions about what information is actually being exchanged in the job search process.
For employers, this process at times becomes a disappoint-ing ritual of sorts. After interviewing the 100th candidate dressed in a similar blue suit, carrying a leather briefcase, communicating positive nonverbal behaviors (firm handshake and good eye contact), and answering all the questions according to the textbook, employers begin wondering about the efficacy of engaging themselves and candidates in the traditional recruitment and evaluation processes. These processes may have for all intents and purposes been negated by well prepared candidates who know how to play the proper roles of "good applicant" and "good interviewee".
A more ethical and realistic approach to the job search and career advancement is one that focuses on building new skills rather than a new set of role behaviors. Therefore, we are concerned with the process of building and using networks as a permanent aspect of one's career rather than something you only do when you need to find a job or advance your career. The skill becomes part of your daily patterns of behavior. As such, it becomes natural and reveals the real you.
CHANGING YOUR BEHAVIOR
Each of us has learned behaviors, habits, or patterns we reinforce daily. Many of these behaviors generate positive responses from others; but some of them are bad habits we should break. For example, how well do you communicate over the telephone, physically appear to others, or ask and answer questions? Do you stutter, fidget, or lose eye contact when nervous? Do you talk too much or too little? Are you too shy to contact strangers? Do you have a habit of being late for appointments? These are all examples of behaviors we can change if we are strongly motivated to do so. But it is easy to slip back into the old patterns if we are not careful.
If you feel you need to break certain habits and learn new behaviors, you can make long-term changes without resorting to temporary role playing. You must first be aware of the undesirable behavior you wish to replace as well as the desirable behavior you wish to acquire. Second, you must be aware of the undesirable behavior whenever it takes place. For this you may need to enlist the aid of your spouse or good Mend; ask them to: "Please observe me and inform me whenever I am greater awareness of the particular behavior.
