Subject: Re: Three Immutable Laws of Networking
From: "Anthony B. Russell"
Date: 12 Dec 1996 23:55:03 GMT
Arthur,
I would like to propose an alternative explanation for why networking is
so important in certain situations. I am a Ph.D. candidate and I am
working on the MBA degree concurrently and I have had the opportunity to
compare and contrast between the two cultures. In business, it is important
to "find the best person" for the job, but the person also has to have
personable skills and the ability to communicate in clear and coherent
fashion. It is also important to know how this person reacts under stress
(e.g. does the person start drinking heavily once the pressure is up). What
networking allows you to do is to know someone who knows someone and so on
to find a person with skill and personality that will help (e.g. a good
communicator who can handle stressful situations and keep a clear head). A
resume simply cannot tell an employer about this. The contrast to science
is that technical skills appear to be the largest selling point for people
and good communication skills aren't always emphasized. A person who is
able to write adequately and publish frequently enough but is unable to
communicate orally may still maintain a position in science, particularly
in academia, but in a business situation, this person whould be at a
disadvantage.
And this leads into another point you brought up regarding the situation
where a person has difficulty networking. Yes, networking can be a
harrowing experience for some people and especially for those who have
difficulty talking to people they do not know. There are groups that help
people who have such difficulties, including Toastmasters and such. I
disagree that networking is a form of discrimination, but I will agree that
networking does put a lot of pressure on people who may not be good at it.
I think what is important is to realize that the ability to network is
important one and learn to develop it.
Graduate students in the sciences aren't always encouraged to network and
the ability to do so is usually perceived as a "superficial" trait. This is
rather unfortunate for many people. But the fact is, in science as well as
in business, many opportunities are found through networking.
Thanks,
Anthony Russell
Department of Physiology and Biophysics
Mail Code 357290
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195
arussell@u.washington.edu
Arthur E. Sowers wrote in article
...
>
> Another bad thing about thw whole networking scheme is that it ends up
> being a subtle form of discrimination against those who don't do it or
are
> not good at it. After all, you might be a good guy, but if you don't
> "sound good" (in an interview) or "know" someone, then you don't get the
> job. Its a form of injustice that many of us have to live with.
>
> I was curious to read in a newspaer article that rich people very often
go
> to their friends for financial advice, and not financial experts or
people
> who really know what they are doing. This is a similar paradigm to the
> "its not what you know, its who you know" aspect of job hunting. The
> question is often "do you know anyone who.. does 'X'?" instead of "how
> do we find the best person for this job?"
>
> > Regards,
> >
> > Andrew
> >
> >
> Regards,
>
> Art Sowers
>
>
Subject: Re: Three Immutable Laws of Networking
From: "Arthur E. Sowers"
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 05:57:15 -0500
Anthony,
I don't have any major disagreements with anything you say, but a few
comments...
On 12 Dec 1996, Anthony B. Russell wrote:
>
> Arthur,
> I would like to propose an alternative explanation for why networking is
> so important in certain situations. I am a Ph.D. candidate and I am
> working on the MBA degree concurrently and I have had the opportunity to
> compare and contrast between the two cultures. In business, it is important
> to "find the best person" for the job, but the person also has to have
> personable skills and the ability to communicate in clear and coherent
> fashion. It is also important to know how this person reacts under stress
> (e.g. does the person start drinking heavily once the pressure is up). What
> networking allows you to do is to know someone who knows someone and so on
> to find a person with skill and personality that will help (e.g. a good
> communicator who can handle stressful situations and keep a clear head).
The "knows someone who knows someone" is a functional mechanism to recruit
a person or to find a job. My original line of thinking, which you
thoughtfully included at the end of your post, was really considering that
the networking may NOT locate the "best" person and will miss a lot of
good people. The other mechanism to find people/jobs, namely "national
advertising" to collect large numbers of CVs/resumes (i.e. what we have
now in the science job market), doesn't really sellect the "best" person,
either (because out of, say, 100 applicants, they might pick what someone
thinks is the top 5, when I think that probably anyone in the top 30% will
do just fine) and the net effect is a lot more disappointed people than
happy people (viz. the bad mood all around src).
A
> resume simply cannot tell an employer about this.
My "take" on this aspect is that people are more comfortable with
things/people that they are familiar with. Also, the longer one "knows"
someone, the better off and more valuable that someone will be to one. Its
a variation on the old saying "old friends are the best friends." And, the
only way to get into the "psychological" fabric of the job hunting/finding
project is to network (I don't like the word, personally, because what the
activity is is actually trying to increase your "contact" list and try to
get those people to remember you if they hear about a job. To me, its
something like a project in "making friends" although one certainly does
not "make friends" with me by making one or two phone calls to me. So, I
am somewhat "put off" when people call me up in what is obvious to me
within 5-10 seconds is a "networking" phone call. This is why I downplay
networking a little. As I think about the job finding project, I have the
notion that a lot of people "luck out" when they "happen" to be in a
social situation where they have something to offer and they meet someone
who needs someone with what is offered. In the science scene, the
conference is one of the best "structured" places to do this. I think the
"network" fails when there is a strong disparity in the number of jobs and
the number of people looking for jobs AND there are a fairly small number
of jobs in the world in all the given specializations. The other big
problem in science jobs is that the subject of expertise of many if not
most candidates has little immediate commercial value. The commercial jobs
are looking for people with commercial experience (this is sometimes where
headhunters come in).
Another reason that networking may be more difficult and less efficient
than when first suggested is that it develops and evolves more slowly than
we like. I, today, visited a computer store in a small country town. As I
talked with one of the two business partners (the wife of the other
partner, her husband), she told me the reason they NEVER advertise is that
they have all the business that they need and THEY DON'T REALLY WANT TO
EXPAND WHAT THEY HAVE. They have been serving the small town market,
exclusively, for the last 10-15 years. You and I would probably never
break into THAT market without expending many times more effort and money
than what we would ever get back out of it.
One more observation. My wife has gone out on her own and after 1-/1/2
years now, has word of mouth business coming to her. Again, NO ADVERTISING
was ever done except for a yellow pages entry. However, her expertise
(child psychology) does have a market and she had friends back where she
previoulsly worked who helped with referals and she had almost ten years
worth of experience with "field contacts" in the context of her previous
job. As I understand "networking," its usually an active process with YOU
initiating contacts (the usual paradigm is the telephone, or a "social"
situation such as a structured conference or an unstructured party). As I
learned from my wife, her active networking activities were less efficient
at bringing in clients than word of mouth spread of knowledge of her
services.
I got off on a tangent so I should acknowledge that getting clients in a
private practice is not the same process as getting a job. What upsets me,
however, is, for example, Dave Jensen's simplistic proclamation that "its
all networking" and "its all the hidden job market" and my response to
that is that even if you know these two views, its still not easy. If it
were, then social evolution in job hunting/finding would have corrected
the problem (just like our free market economy makes adjustments) by now.
The problem is the vast mismatch between the numbers and specializations
of available tallent and the kinds of jobs that are available and there
just ain't no simple, easy answer for that problem. All the talk about
"alternatives" is about trying to find, instead of a science job, then a
science-RELATED job (at best), or just some job at all. I'm not even sure
that networking is all that important there either because the bigger
barrier is that most of these jobs don't care how smart you are, they want
2-3 years of relevant experience. You can't substitute "networking"
contact with "relevant experience." What you can hope for is that somebody
"likes" you, and they will give you a chance to show that you can learn
to do something commercially useful that you have not had much prior
experience with.
I appologise for the extended tangent.
The contrast to science
> is that technical skills appear to be the largest selling point for people
> and good communication skills aren't always emphasized. A person who is
> able to write adequately and publish frequently enough but is unable to
> communicate orally may still maintain a position in science, particularly
> in academia, but in a business situation, this person whould be at a
> disadvantage.
True, but don't forget that I think there are a lot of jobs where these
skills aren't needed. But they count a lot FOR THE INTERVIEW.
> And this leads into another point you brought up regarding the situation
> where a person has difficulty networking. Yes, networking can be a
> harrowing experience for some people and especially for those who have
> difficulty talking to people they do not know. There are groups that help
> people who have such difficulties, including Toastmasters and such. I
> disagree that networking is a form of discrimination, but I will agree that
> networking does put a lot of pressure on people who may not be good at it.
> I think what is important is to realize that the ability to network is
> important one and learn to develop it.
The main thing I'm worried about is that all this emphasis on networking
is, or might be, conducive to creating an inferiority complex in those who
don't know a lot of people, or are uncomfortable with the idea of "selling
themselves." I have seen such preoccupation with excessive attention given
to this angle that it diverts one's attention from the notion that if one
wants a job and is starting to get sick and tired of waiting through
ten years of postdocing, then its important to change job markets and job
goals. When I wrote my CPSJ essays
(http://www.access.digex.net/~arthures/homepage.htm)
I recall writing a sentence about vocational training in the
"alternatives" part. The original source for that considered jobs
requiring vocational training as one of the most rapidly expanding job
markets. Just today I also had a conversation with a teacher of truck
driving. He told me that they have an eight week course, at a state
institution in Delaware, where virtually 100% of the graduates are
employed before they finish their course. From what he told me about
compensation, these guys are getting paid typical postdoc wages AT THE
ENTRY LEVEL. If these guys are willing to put in 60 hour weeks (like some
postdocs, most faculty who have teaching and grant writing
responsibilities, and many other managerial jobs) and be away from home a
fair bit, then they can be making $40-55K per year. Mind you that all of
these guys have no trouble at all with lateral mobility. The downside of
all of this is truck driving may not be the most exciting job in the
world. However, the sad fact of real life is that those real exciting
science jobs are just not there like they used to be 10-20 years ago and
the ones that there are have new problems like stability, new pressures,
and new drawbacks (eg. the need to get grant support, and institutional
retreat from granting tenure).
> Graduate students in the sciences aren't always encouraged to network and
> the ability to do so is usually perceived as a "superficial" trait. This is
> rather unfortunate for many people. But the fact is, in science as well as
> in business, many opportunities are found through networking.
This is not untrue, but if anyone tried to put a number on your "many
opportunities" I wonder what they would get. I also have the idea that in
the last couple of years, there has been a healthy upswing in the
discussion of some of these problems and needs (such as networking), which
might help. But, its a vicious circle: if everyone networks, then everyone
expends extra effort and what does it accomplish when there is still a
numbers mis-match between the number of PhDs coming out and the numbers of
science jobs. If people go for the non-science jobs (i.e. all the other
jobs in the world, which is a job pool at least a hundred times larger
and with a much smaller ratio of applicants to jobs), then maybe they
almost don't need networking?
Art Sowers
-------------------------------------------------------
Written in the public interest, the essays on
"Contemporary Problems in Science Jobs" are located at:
http://www.access.digex.net/~arthures/homepage.htm
-------------------------------------------------------
=== no change to below, included for reference and context ====
> Thanks,
> Anthony Russell
> Department of Physiology and Biophysics
> Mail Code 357290
> University of Washington
> Seattle, WA 98195
> arussell@u.washington.edu
>
> Arthur E. Sowers wrote in article
> ..
