I've blogged before about how annoying networking is from the point of view of a job seeker. I recently experienced it from the other side, and it's just as irritating.
I'm not involved in hiring, but I still got a request from a student of my acquaintance for what I as a lifelong job seeker recognize to be an informational interview with the hopes of talking their way into a job. I treated their request as reasonable because I recognize that most job-seeking advice acts as though this is standard operating procedure. But it's an irritant. It takes up my time and doesn't offer me anything in return. I already know this person exists and wants a job, I have a sense of their abilities, but I (and my employer) don't have any jobs to offer. I'd very much prefer that this dance didn't exist.
This makes me wonder why this whole networking/informational interview thing became commonplace in the first place.
The person who was trying to network with me was very good at it and not at all pushy, but I still found it a bit irritating. If it weren't already a standard form, I wouldn't have permitted it to happen. But once upon a time it wasn't a standard form. Which means that, once upon a time, some employer got contacted by some job-seeker with an offer of coffee, an imposition on their time, and a barrage of questions, desperately not saying "Please give me a job, please please please!" This was completely unprecedented at the time, and the job-seeker didn't have the excuse that they're following standard form. But, for reasons I can't fathom, this employer responded by giving the job-seeker a job. And this happened often enough that it's become a standard part of advice to job-seekers.
Who are these employers? Why did it work on them? If circumventing their standard hiring procedures worked on them, why did they make their standard hiring procedures what they are? I just cannot imagine why a person who imposes upon your time and tries to circumvent your procedures would be considered a better candidate than someone who takes you at your word and respects your time?
6 comments:
I don't know how it happened, but I know it's been around a long time. I was counseled to do informational interviewing when I finished university back in 1982. I did quite a bit of it - and did it again when I started grad school.
I wasn't expecting to get a job offer, though. I truly was looking for information, trying to get a sense of what was happening in the field.
I've been on the other end, too, but I don't mind it.
It's been less fruitful and logical in my corner of the world. I've been encouraged to do it in contexts where I didn't have any actual questions that the person could have answered, I just wanted a job. And when I was on the receiving end, I didn't have any answers (which I told my interlocutor going in - I'll answer some questions if you want but I don't think I'll be much help because of reasons). It's only ever been a charade in my segment of the labour market.
That does sound like a total waste of time. Seems like it would look kind of desperate.
I can well understand being desperate to find work. But for some reason we're never supposed to show that to potential employers!
In the America I grew up in, what is now called “networking” was called “inside pull” or “office politics.” Networking, as it’s called, makes your social life a wholly owned subsidiary of your professional life. It makes people a means to an end.
"makes your social life a wholly owned subsidiary of your professional life"
Networking has nothing to do with social life. It does entail using people as a means to an end, but most people would not confuse it with socializing.
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