Just last week, a grad student told me she’d always thought "networking to get a job" was a kind of cheating. It’s an unfortunate truth that the term “networking” has an oily feel in the mouth for many academics and other professionals.
She took issue with the commonly repeated networking mantra, “It’s not what you know; it’s who you know that counts.” After all, she was focusing on learning enough to be a professor, and she wanted her value to be calculated on her education and abilities, not on her haphazard socio-economic history in knowing the right person(s).
The Formal Hiring Process
But the student was missing a larger truth. To find it, let's examine the typical academic hiring process.
In educational institutions offering advanced degrees, it is customary to publish job descriptions about a year before the job opens, in appropriate academic journals and other traditional academic publications (think Chronicle of Higher Education).
Theoretically, if you’re finishing your Ph.D., you can find all appropriate openings by checking the right publications (paper and online).
And, theoretically, all you need to do is send in your application, have stellar grades, appropriate teaching/research experience, glowing recommendations from your dissertation committee - and the hiring committee will recognize your sterling qualities and hire you.
We can agree that it is important to be known for your good work, both inside and outside academics.
But we don’t always grasp that no one really knows about you and your accomplishments unless you tell them.
If you simply wait for your good work to be noticed, you may wait forever. This doesn’t mean that you must go around boasting and bragging about yourself.
Finding a Job
When you're in job search mode, even if you are unusual and remember everything relevant about yourself, you can't possibly know everything about all the jobs that you might fit.
Your "network" - professional colleagues, friends, relatives, and acquaintances - can help by letting you know of appropriate jobs that they hear about, but only if they know you well enough to know what you can do.
For example, some years ago, an anthropologist friend of mine finished his dissertation and needed a job quickly. One of his neighbors worked in a medical school and knew of an immediate opening for a statistician to teach in the school of public health.
The neighbor knew that the anthropologist had recently returned from fieldwork involving a large public health survey in Bolivia, had a strong background in statistics, and was looking, so he mentioned the opening.
The anthropologist applied, particularly because one of the preferences listed was for candidates with experience with a certain statistics software program, which he happened to have, among others, because he had always had an interest in statistics, and how it could be applied to his work in anthropology.
In his application to the position labeled "statistician," he was careful to point out his qualifications from both "sides" of his skill base: his general background in statistics and knowledge of that specific software, as well as the "extra" qualifications he brought to the position, mainly the relevance of his cross-cultural communications experience to public health surveys.
The anthropologist got the job, but later said that he never would have thought to look for a job as statistician in a medical school. His neighbor, who knew of the position, and happened to know of his interests and had some appreciation of his skills, was the networking catalyst.
But, was it "cheating" to act on the basis of that tip from a network connection? Was it actually the connection that "got" him the job? On both counts, the answer is - no, of course not!
Two Basic Networking Principles
This story actually illustrates two principles. If the neighbor had not known of the anthropologist's background in statistics, he probably wouldn't have mentioned the open position and the application would not have been made.
1.) The first principle is to let people in your network (and beyond), know what you can do and have done. It is not automatically boasting to talk about yourself; it is simply factual information.
The neighbor did nothing but mention the job opening - the anthropologist had to not only make the application, he had to explain his qualifications so the hiring committee could see that he had the skills necessary to the job, as well as the "extra" value he brought to the position.
2.) The second principle is that it remains your responsibility to let your network know of your abilities and to be clear in your application materials about what you bring to add value to that position. You may see your skills and experience as an obvious value to the position, but you'll probably have to connect the dots for a hiring committee which may not see the relevance of your skills in the same way.
I’d like to see the worn networking phrase be restated as, "It's not what you know; it’s who knows what you can do" - maybe even adding, "and how well you can do it."
Bottom Line
The larger truth my grad student was missing was that the networking step is often necessary to finding the right job, and that all candidates still have to get through the same vetting process, to determine that they can do the job. Even for academics, networking should be seen as a necessary part of the search process.
© Copyright, 2009, Kate Duttro. All rights reserved. Used with Permission.
------------------------------
Job-Hunt's Academic Job Search expert Kate Duttro is a career strategist, coach, and instigator. She writes the Career Change for Academics Blog, for current and recovering academics, and other smart cookies. For more than 10 years, she has provided career services at the University of Washington, where she has counseled, taught classes and workshops, and dug out information for thousands of undergrads, grad students, post docs and alumni in all phases of career development. Holding several degrees, including a PhD in anthropology, Kate has also earned many professional certifications in the field of career coaching.
