Networking Your Way to a Better Job – Introduction

If you are one of those people who reads about the author (on the flyleaf, or at the back of the book) prior to reading the text itself, you already know I'm the chairman of one of the largest outplacement firms in the U.S. In case you're not familiar with the term "outplacement", it's the professional career planning and job search assistance many companies provide to employees who are being terminated. In point of fact, our firm has out placed more than 20,000 persons over the past five years. As part of our service to our corporate clients, our counselors are required to maintain detailed records concerning the job campaigns of executives and managers who received individual outplacement. We also do our utmost to keep tabs on the progress of persons who receive their outplacement training in groups although we're not required to do so.

This background on the extent of my experience in outplacement is offered for only one reason: to convince you of the validity of a prediction I am about to make about your own job search-one that I make even though I have never met you! My prediction is simply this: if your salary is anywhere between $25,000 and $125,000 a year, the odds are one-in-two that you will secure your next job through a personal friend, relative or business associate. While this conclusion may surprise you at first, the more you think about it, the more reasonable it seems, and this, for two good reasons. First, because it's a lot easier for job seekers like you to ask the people they know if they've heard of job openings than it is to mount an aggressive letter writing campaign to companies and recruiters. And most people tend to take the easy steps before they get around to the hard ones. Second, it's a whole lot faster to get a job when a friend provides you with personal introductions to people with positions to fill. You'll have to admit that when someone is promoting you, it's a lot easier to set up interviews with potential employers than it is to secure such meetings without an endorsement, as is the case when you're just one of many people answering an ad or having your paperwork "on file" with employment agencies.

After reading my prediction, I hope you won't need a whole lot more convincing to seek job search assistance in earnest from your friends. But an awful lot of job seekers I've worked with are reluctant to approach certain of their friends for assistance in locating another job. To some extent, this is because some job seekers are genuinely embarrassed to let friends and family, know that they are in the predicament of needing another job. That's to be expected; I've long since stopped counting the number of times I've heard otherwise intelligent men and women tell me that they would rather remain out of work than inform a friend or former business associate (with the capability of introducing them to someone with jobs to fill) that they were in the job market!



Personal embarrassment isn't the only reason job seekers give me when they fail to approach friends, associates, and family. All too many job seekers have told me they don't want to be a burden to anyone else and so try to conduct a search without revealing their situation to certain people they know. There's still one more excuse I hear: "So and so really wouldn't put himself out for me." Or "She's really too busy to want to become involved in my job campaign."