You want to know the secret to a healthy, thriving career?
It’s not your education. Or your skills. Or even your achievements.
It’s your network; the people around you are the key to a successful career. A thriving network opens opportunity after opportunity with future jobs, exciting projects, and groundbreaking initiatives. No doubt you’ve heard about people working on incredible things; I can tell you without a shred of hesitation that they got there through their network.
The problem is, however, that the average professional doesn’t really have a network beyond their immediate circle of coworkers and friends. Many people (relatively) recently learned this the hard way post layoffs. For one reason or another, their job is no more, and when they turn to their network for help, they have little, if any, opportunity to explore. (Now consider that that gets even more uneasy when you combine it with a difficult job market!)
There is no silver bullet to it. The answer to solving that problem will always boil down to the same answer: you should have always been networking, with or without the intent of future job opportunities.
Some roles, fortunately, have at least loosely networked. Perhaps they went to their industry’s trade shows, or met others in their space through webinars and conferences, etc. But, the greater majority of the workforce hasn’t stepped foot into a conference hall, let alone joined a webinar or met people in their industry or line of work outside of their current (or former) team of coworkers.
Whatever your situation was, start networking now and never stop networking. I’m not saying to make it a second full-time job. Instead, take some time once or twice a week to socialize with people outside of your coworking circle. Not only is it the only way to make future opportunities possible, but it’s also a great way to keep yourself from being trapped in the bubble that is your office. The world’s a much, much bigger place.
Network before you need your network