3 Insights on Networking That Changed My Life
By: Brandon Fong
Tags: Career Advice, Networking, Life Lessons, Technology, Self Improvement

From an outsider who broke into the tech world.

Photo by Christian Battaglia on Unsplash

For some of us, networking is something we toss to the side from our list of goals. For me, as I was making my career change from middle school history teacher to iOS developer, all I wanted to do was prove all of the doubters wrong, alone. I wanted to lock myself in my room and bury myself in online resources, not coming out until hundreds of hours later, brain bulging, able to surprise everyone by attaining my dream job as a programmer.

It wasn’t until after reading a book on adulting, that the section on networking shifted my perspective. It made me realize the first insight about networking that changed my life:

1. It’s Arguably the Most Effective Thing You Can Do to Grow your Career

If career growth was a game, networking would be the power up you save up all your coins to buy right away. It would be the one that makes each action in the future more powerful, and it would ultimately win you the game.

Sociologist and Stanford professor Mark Granovetter proved the power of networking with his famous 1973 research on weak ties. After surveying workers who had recently gotten new jobs in a Boston suburb, he found that more than three-quarters of these new jobs came as a result of “occasional” contacts. These weak ties are exactly the types of relationships that come from expanding your network, and the more you do so, the more potential opportunities you accumulate.

Because I think it’s safe to assume the majority of the ties someone has are “weak”, the conclusion to draw from Granovetter’s research isn’t that the ties that will help us most are the weak ones, but that the greater the amount of ties in general, the greater potential for opportunities. Which is to say:

Expand your web.

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

“Your network is your net worth.” — Porter Gale

Proper networking is like some kind of magic gardening. Each time you make a new connection, you sow a seed. Sometimes, within 5 minutes you could be connected to an opportunity. In that situation, that seed magically bore bountiful fruit immediately. Other times, it’s weeks, months, or years later, when you get a message from that person, or bump into them again, that they provide an opportunity. That bountiful fruit is reaped then.

However, networking will not just accumulate you more job opportunities, but will also double your personal resources, life knowledge, and brainpower when you make a connection with someone who is already in your desired field. Ideas, opinions, fresh perspective, and inspiration are all valuable fruit that can be shared immediately.

2. Embarrass Yourself

When you’re at meetups, or even in online chats, you hear so many terms and concepts you aren’t familiar with (especially the earlier you are along). What do you do in this situation?

to sip the IDK cup or not?

This is where I say: embarrass yourself.

Imagine two people in that situation.

The first person is a bit confused, but, out of embarrassment, doesn’t want to give away just how much of a newbie they are. They make a mental note to look up this term when they get home and allow the conversation to continue on. A few moments later, the topic has shifted and soon the term is forgotten completely.

The second person is someone who will always ask a clarifying question, even if it’s a bit embarrassing. They ask “sorry, you said API, what does that mean?”

The person they are talking to immediately understands at what level they are at and explains the concept to them, and maybe points them to some research to look into when they get home. The listener writes down on their phone the things they were given to further research.

To the second person, their eventual goal is much more important than the way their ego feels in that moment. They know that the long-term effect of that momentary uncomfortableness is bringing them that much closer to their goal and they will surely not be in the same shoes the next time that term is used.

The second person will land their first software dev job much faster than the first person, because they don’t mind embarrassing themself. It’s like working out: no pain no gain.

As a rule of thumb, ask every question whenever you get the chance.

Now I’m not saying every person you talk to will be willing and able to explain a concept to you in a clear manner, but you don’t want to walk away from a conversation knowing you didn’t at least ask. Hopefully, these people do respond well, which leads me to my next insight.

3. Mentors Provide Direction That Can Save You From Giving Up

Another rule of thumb: look for people who have the life you want, go in their direction, and just be around them.

When I used to teach music lessons, I would get asked by people if they should learn an instrument on their own. I would always tell them: it’s better to have a teacher so they can fix your mistakes, because a youtube video can’t see you play and give you feedback.

I could always tell when people hadn’t taken such advice and were self-taught, or simply just practiced the wrong way too often. I would see people playing the songs kind of right, but with weird fingerings or awkward strumming patterns. I knew that they had practiced a lot, but the wrong way. They had solidified their bad habits, and didn’t know how to play without the flaws that were embedded in their muscle memory. They had spent hours practicing things that would either one day need to be un-learned, or would become the final roadblock that would end their growth.

Photo by Jacek Dylag on Unsplash

The same is true with any skill. This is why I say that the hardest thing about self-studying a skill is that you might not know what you need to be studying and learning, and you might not know what you’re getting wrong. This is where it is helpful to find a mentor.

I was able to find a mentor through a group on Facebook about tech. I posted in it asking if anyone was an iOS developer and had advice for someone like me. Someone actually responded and we set up a phone call that lasted for a whole hour, where he gave me advice on all the steps I should be taking. I quickly re-adjusted my current plan of action to a more informed daily schedule, which eventually helped me land the internship that helped me land my job!

Who knows how much time I could’ve wasted had he not re-directed my approach. We’ve kept in touch ever since, and I’ve occasionally asked him questions when I was stuck on coding problems. That day I learned that there are more great people out there than you think.

You need direction, if you just trudge away by yourself, Kobe style, you might focus on the wrong thing and end up getting overly and unnecessarily frustrated, which will result in you quitting.

Which brings up the fact that with self-studying a skill, you have one main enemy to defeat: losing motivation. This is the most likely cause for failing and this can come from frustration or excessive stress, that is, seeing studying as too big of a chore to continue on.

A mentor can help alleviate that stress by helping you plan a study schedule that properly maps out what learning should be done at what time, so you’re not attempting the hardest concepts at too early of a level, at which point you’ll say “I’m just not cut out for this” and give up. Not to mention that a mentor can help explain to you difficult concepts, or even just tell you a simple fact that you’ve been googling for the past 25 minutes.

Which brings me to the point that the earlier you are in your learning, the more you will benefit from explanations specially-catered to your situation. I remember when I started learning iOS development, I would find answers to my questions on stack overflow, but couldn’t even really understand those answers. There was too much jargon and prerequisite background knowledge within the answer for me to understand it at my level, so it really helped when I could find actual people to explain things to me according to my context.

If you can’t find a mentor through an online community, I would even say it’s worth it to pay someone to mentor you. A mentor of mine actually told me that’s something he did. He went on fiverr/upwork and paid a senior iOS developer to mentor him into an iOS developer.

Final Tips: How to Actually Do it

Virtually

Social media is arguably the most powerful tool in our day that is accessible to everyone. Look for communities and groups on Discord, Slack, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and LinkedIn. Join them, introduce yourself and begin asking questions and making connections.

In my personal journey, because I was studying iOS, I joined groups on each one of those platforms I just listed on iOS development (except for twitter), as well as general programming. One group I use on slack has fully acted as a replacement to me having a senior iOS developer to ask questions to when I’m really stuck (my company is very small). I was even able to find people in the chat who work at the companies I wanted to work at, and get referrals just by DM’ing them.

In-Person

Not necessarily the most 2020 friendly, but meetup.com was a great avenue for me to find physical meetups to go to where I connected with lots of people, some of whom ended up helping me out a lot.

During the time of this article being written, I would not recommend going to any in-person meetups, but after COVID is over, I highly recommend it.

Now, going to networking events itself we know, can be pretty awkward if you let it be. It might be intimidating and weird to walk up to random strangers and strike up a conversation, but think of it this way: a simple conversation with the right person could get you a job and change your life. It could carry the outcome, and thus the value of an entire college degree.

For those with less social confidence: just introduce yourself, what kind of role or career you’re going for and use one of these conversation starters:

Ask for their career story

Explain your learning and process and ask if there’s anything you could do differently.

Ask for advice on how to achieve the goal you have

Ask for a look-over of your LinkedIn and resume

Ask for tips for a beginner programmer like yourself

Ask for any open opportunities at their company

And always, ask for their contact before you part ways. The easiest way is to ask for their LinkedIn.

Closing

Networking is so incredibly powerful to bring about career and personal growth. So why do so many of us shy away from it, or just ignore it completely?

For those of us who have this tendency (me included), I believe it’s because we want to prove to the world that we can figure things out on our own, achieve things on our own, and take full credit for our hard work. But that’s just not the way life is. We are a product of our families, our communities, our education, the resources we’ve had access to, and most importantly, all the people in our lifetime who have shaped us into who we are. Let’s acknowledge the good people who have helped us bear fruit in our lives and move forward knowing that we also have the potential power to change the life of someone we cross paths with.

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