Networking

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I cringe whenever I hear the word "networking" on how I have to pretty much network to get ahead. It scares me so badly. You have to network for jobs, career, for getting into grad school. People always tell it to you simply like you just gotta not be lazy and do your hw. I am terrified of networking and I always get so stressed whenever I am told I have to. I have to think so much whenever I send out an email to someone I dont know. I have to get people to check it and revise it which is annoying because I am writing an email not a short essay.

I might have an even more strong reaction then you. If a job does not use social skills having to need them would actually not lead to comparative advantages being fully utilized so this makes society inefficeint and it is not like this is sophisticated econ it is mentioned in principles classes even.

I don't even know how to network or have anyone to network with. I interact with very few people and don't leave the house much.

I found a book by Barbara Ehrenreich titled "Bait and Switch" that documents her experiences posing as a middle-level-manager looking for a job, after I read it I began to loathe the concept of networking even more than the subconscious twinge I felt before. It hit home for me where I could see how in the music world I was a tiny fish in a big ocean, and with my current 'occupation' I can be more of a medium sized fish in a large pond. The 1 thing going for us is the hyperspecialization of skills; it's only a matter of building those skills and becoming known as the people who can get things done.

Networking... *cringe of revulsion*

The Peter Principle calls this kind of promotion-getting "PULL". It essentially means you get the promotion or job simply because you have/made friends in the right places and they "pull" you up to that job. "PUSH" is the standard idea that you'll get promoted due to your own work efforts - which rarely succeeds.

The very idea of this sort of thing makes me ill with revulsion, but it's how most businesses work. An average worker with friends will almost always be chosen over the amazing worker without them.

The thing is I've tried to network...I really have. I've gone out of my comfort zone and attempted to sell myself to people. Guess what? It doesn't work. Or maybe I just really suck at it...I don't know.

Hmm. Is it so horrible that, say, I could have never graduated from high school, never taken a programming course, and yet if I can get 100 people to tell an employer what a great programmer I am, I'd get a programming job, and even get picked over someone with a master's degree in computer science, straight A's and numerous personal programming projects?

Maybe the idea with networking is that applicants "selling" their own abilities would be biased, so they need others to "confirm" the skills? Although that's still very iffy to me - how do they know the people in the "network" aren't just best friends, and as biased as the applicant?

There is a quote from Adam Smith saying "affection generally diminishes as the relation grows more and more remote." So of course he will be biased and we found this was stated in the 1700s and is still true today.

Join and participate with Toastmasters to improve how you "act" in public:
http://www.toastmasters.org/

Go work in a restaurant as a host/hostess; wait staff; bus staff. Restaurants are so fast paced that you might be distracted from overthinking the trepidation. You'll learn to just wear your "game face"/public face.

Yea, I think avoiding bait and switch dramas is a beneficial thing.
Maybe I take the bumble and blush stumble and flush approach to networking.
I have done well networking at Norms restaurant, although it has been some time since I have been there.
I think a key is generosity with your specialized skills that people really need.
We aspies can arrange ourselves so supply and demand is very much in our favor.

Ugh, I hate schmoozing and brown nosing and pretending to like people; I even get annoyed when I answer the phone at work and the caller replies with "How are you?" and then they proceed to try to make their case rather than just call me up and ask the question properly. I respond much better to people who make direct and honest requests for help than those who try to impress me with who they know, their alumni status (I work at a university) or want to argue just for the sake of it.

I am NT, but with Aspie traits. I can't stand "networking." Has it hurt my career? Well, I guess that depends on what I want from my career. If I wanted to move up and be a manager of some type, I would be damaged. Fortunately, I am pretty content at my current position. Since I don't need to get ahead, I don't need to endure the Christmas parties, baby showers, etc.

I struggle with this one as well. It always seems to me like everyone else naturally knows what they are supposed to do and I'm stuck trying to figure out what "networking" even means. Now that I am a graduate student I am supposed to be doing this but just don't know how.

I'm a freshman accounting major and my professor and TA are already tossing that word around. I got invited to an honors banquet for my class in a couple of weeks but it's also supposedly a networking event so I'm unsure if I should go as I have no idea what to expect and it makes me nervous.