A Recommended Approach to Gain Support and Identify Career Opportunities
by Charles McConnell

Networking is the single-most misunderstood concept in career search today. Most career seekers have great difficulty accepting the validity of this concept. But it is permissible, in fact recommended, to ask others for advice and counsel while you are searching for a new career opportunity. Many looking for work say they want to do it themselves…on the QT. “No one needs to know;” “I can handle it myself!” The majority of career seekers are driven to try anything short of getting others involved, including mass mailings and sending hundreds of resumes to blind P.O. Boxes…all to avoid asking others to participate. This reluctance may be the product of a variety of issues, but usually it boils down to two: the embarrassment of being in career transition and an unwillingness to ask someone they know for job-hunting help.

The truth is that:

  1. Contrary to popular myth, most people when asked to participate in another’s search preparation or networking efforts are pleased to be asked and willing to help.
  2. Most people who are contacted as part of a search network are not hiring at that moment. They do not have or know of a job and they are not in a position to offer a job that fits another’s career needs. But they are in position to facilitate that person’s network.
  3. Most successful searches involve networking in some form or another. Networking results in introductions and recommendations that ultimately uncover the vast majority of today’s job opportunities and placements.

Referral network letters have several primary goals:

  • to distribute your search announcement and your resume/marketing brochure
  • to make your search objective known to friends and acquaintances who are interested in you and enthused about helping you
  • to widen your support group through people new to you
  • to make use of the multiplier effect , friends of friends of friends, to expand your reach

While building your network, the sense of urgency to find your elusive dream career position has to be sublimated. While career opportunity identification is clearly the end game, referral networking is the non-linear, best path approach to that goal.

Referral networking requires applying your best communication skills, initially in writing a letter and then in your follow-up work, to keep the network active. What to say? How do you avoid sounding like you are overreaching and asking for too much? Here are several suggestions concerning how to proceed:

  1. Understand that your approach requires a friendly request for help…subtle but strategic.
  2. You should be very direct and honest in stating your purpose. Purpose? What purpose? We recommend using this idea, “I am in search of my new or next career position. I value your opinion and want to ask for your reaction concerning my career objective and search direction. I am not asking you for a position, only an opportunity to hear your thoughts concerning my approach.”
  3. Make certain you don’t send a signal in your letter that your real hope is a job offer. That isn’t the purpose of this letter. It would sound presumptuous and ultimately be counter-productive.
  4. As with all projects that you wish to manage effectively, this one requires an agenda. What you want to discuss. Questions you would like to ask to enable them to prepare in advance. Where you wish to meet or a suggestion to talk on the phone. Time. Place. Date.
  5. It is important to remember that your request for attention requires their investment of time and consideration on your behalf. So, an advance “thank you” is appropriate.

Referral networking may seem indirect and a very long way ’round to achieve your search goal. But referral networking, using this recommended approach and letter format, has a superior track record of uncovering real opportunities that otherwise would be invisible to career seekers. So, get serious. Develop your referral network and strengthen your career-hunting campaign!