Think of a sports activity you didn’t give up trying to learn. Remember how you had fun even when you were on the early part of the learning curve? The difference was that when you were learning tennis, a computer program or how to ride a horse, you probably were not being judged on the quality of your early efforts and the stakes weren't terribly high. However, when networking, you're holding yourself up to others' scrutiny, and you're definitely being judged. The stakes in any particular meeting are low, but the whole purpose of networking is pretty serious: to find appropriate and meaningful employment and redirect your entire life.
No wonder, then, that the initial frustrations of networking, or the occasional major disappointment when a meeting goes horribly, turn off many networkers. They never get good enough to reap its benefits; they choose not to go around, so nothing comes around. Their resulting verdict is that networking doesn't work.
If you're lucky, your early meetings will include one in which someone is so supportive, or you learn so much or you get turned on to so many other people, that your adrenalin surges and boosts you through the initial insecurities and doldrums.
One of the strongest incentives to maintain your pace during your early efforts at networking is the enormous amount of energy you've already invested in your self-assessment and in developing your master contacts list and setting up a planning and tracking system. The prospect of seeing all that effort go to waste should motivate you. If it doesn't, the thought that countless other job seekers—many of them your competitors—are using the networking technique successfully should serve as propellant.
The first five meetings are hell. If they're not, you're not extending yourself. After you get into the swing of things and begin to control the process, rather than be controlled by it, momentum will develop naturally. This early, rocky period will also serve as a helpful model for weathering later stretches when things go momentarily flat in your search. The message for early-stage networkers, therefore, is to keep the faith and keep moving.
Maintaining Momentum When Things Bog Down or Blow Up:
Once a job search is well underway, it's far more common for networkers to report that they have too much to do rather than too little. All of those tasks—scheduling, tracking, planning, calling, meeting, following up—will keep you very busy. But there still may be times when the process slows or when you run low on new contacts or new directions.
Several factors can be at play here: It's not uncommon to have a harder time scheduling meetings during the summer, when more people are on vacation. Candidates who conduct their searches within tightly defined geographical areas may find that they've succeeded in reaching the "major players": the high-profile prospective contacts in their area. But then they feel that there's no one new to meet. During recessions, the streets may be awash with legions of similarly credentialed job seekers, all trying to network with the same base of contacts that, after a while, gets tapped out, overused and fed up.
A good technique for sustaining momentum during a flat period is to change activities. If new meetings are proving hard to schedule, grab your tracking list and spend more time looping back and following up than you normally would. Go to the library and peruse the latest batch of directories to see whether you can identify some new contacts.
Attend more conferences, meetings, and luncheons—any gatherings where groups of people congregate and you have an excuse to meet new contacts. Revise and update your tracking system; purge stale or useless information from your database.
Sometimes, a loss of momentum won't come from structural difficulties with the networking process itself, but rather from a transitory fit of the psychological blahs. We can talk forever about networking meetings being low-key, but the fact remains that they're often stressful. For natural extroverts and sales types, the pressure may not be felt keenly. But for many job hunters, having to constantly push forward to schedule, track, write, talk, and explain themselves gets wearing after a while.
For those in desperate need of work or those whose natural tendency is to exercise fierce control over their lives, there may be a tendency to run a job search like a 100-yard dash rather than a paced, 10,000-meter race. Athletes who engage in endurance sports learn to keep just within their "aerobic threshold" that is, to hold a space where they can still breathe and not go into oxygen debt. If they exceed that threshold, they soon erode their physical and emotional resources. At that point, every problem looks twice as tough, and every disappointment feels twice as keen. The same holds true with the rigors of networking and running a job search.
During your job campaign, be good to yourself. You may find that you need more sleep than when you were beating your brains out in your old job. Surprised? Don't be. This is new territory, and newness is stressful for all of us. You may gain or lose some weight. Unless this becomes so extreme that you look like either you have no self-control or you've contracted some wasting disease, don't become preoccupied with a few pounds either way. First things first: find a great new job. Then you can turn your focus to getting back in shape.
Do mind your health, however. Take an exaggerated approach to eating well and getting regular exercise. If you hate Brussels sprouts and jogging, you can delete them from your regimen after you start your new job. Have checkups twice as often as normal during a job search.
Taking Time Out:
If you utterly lose it and can't stand the prospect of one more meeting or another handwritten thank-you note, give yourself a vacation. Note, please, that we're not encouraging you to give in to the rescue fantasy: a nap here, a nod there, followed by six months of daytime TV. But schedule some time away from the job search time that's solely for you and your family. One week away won't demolish your networking efforts. Since there really is no way to rush the networking process, build at least a few days "off the job" into each calendar quarter. Mark them on your planning calendar with a bright-colored marker and use them as a carrot-on-the-stick to keep you moving.
As part of the orchestration of your search, evaluate your finances and do some short, medium and long-term contingency planning. Don't let the uncertainty of the search process force you into draconian measures that make you and your family feel like deprived martyrs. Keep your overall life equation as stable as possible, for your own sanity and that of your spouse and children. Keep your networking efforts confined to a pace that you find comfortable, manageable and sustainable.
Pointless Networking:
Over and above nurturing your existing network, build time into your business schedule to meet and cultivate still more contacts. For some people, this is in their nature. They love looking into other people's lives, learning new things, interacting, and collaborating. They may not even be aware of how they're empowering themselves.
Just Do It:
The Nike motto, "Just Do It!" must work, or the company wouldn't sell so many shoes. It appeals to people because it strikes a chord that resonates within most of us: at some point, all the planning, theorizing, and preparation are through, and it's time to cut to the chase. The longest journey begins with a single step, and so do the short journeys. You have to decide it's time to start, and you have to be prepared for an exploration even though its duration and destination can't be mapped in advance.
Skilled and productive networking isn't a matter of luck, unless you define luck as "hard work meeting up with opportunity." Effective networking requires: good self-awareness, good planning, good discipline, good interpersonal skills, good curiosity, good faith, good stamina, good determination, good confidence, and good optimism.
