The funny thing about networking is that no one has any idea whether or not it works.
Still, the growing legion of unemployed — people like me, for instance — are encouraged to “network.”
In practice this means contacting everyone you know, or rather, everyone you know who you think can do something to help you.
Yes, this is a cynical way of looking at the networking craze, but think about it.
When people aren’t engaged in self-destructive activities, in those rare times, they perform actions in their own interest.
In a competitive and shrinking and disintegrating job market, if an old acquaintance contacts you looking for employment help, what are you going to do?
This: “Hi! I’d like to introduce you to my boss. He’d love to meet someone who could replace me for way less money.”
Or this: “Gosh, I’m sorry to hear that you’re hopelessly out of work and will be living in a cardboard box under a bridge pretty soon. But I’m sure you’ll find a better job. You’re one of the best manual bowling pin setters in the state.”
Unless you’ve been huffing paint (not recommended) you will go with some version of the second response. This makes you feel warm and fuzzy while keeping the job seeker as far away and nonthreatening as possible.
This is why networking is such a challenge. People generally do not like feeling threatened. You, the networker, are either an immediate danger, or a reminder of bad times ahead.
Now, Job Seeker is not a numbskull. He’s just desperate because he has no marketable skills and two kids in college, and a mortgage, and a roof that is disassembling itself shingle by shingle.
JS tries to expand his chances by increasing the size of his network. This involves searching the Web for people you knew in college, or former co-workers, or people in your fraternity, and so on.
Social networks, like Facebook, encourage this kind of pseudo-friendship by suggesting “friends.” What a weird concept.
The friend of my friend is my friend, even though I don’t know him? That’s the operating principle.
Consequently, you end up with 200 friends, a dozen of whom you actually are friends with. The rest of them are a resource.
Or so you are led to believe.
Check the literature. No one seems to have studied the effectiveness of networking — whether it improves the chances of finding a job, and if so, by how much.
Plenty of people have opinions, but precious few are informed by anything other than anecdotal data.
Peter V. Marsden, of Harvard, delved into the subject in 1990, with the kind of puzzling jargon that’s favored by sociologists. You can’t really tell what he concluded.
A group of scientists at the University of Arizona and Duke University took the subject on in 2001.
Here’s a sample of what they found, from the Annual Review of Sociology:
“The result is that people’s personal networks are homogeneous with regard to many sociodemographic, behavioral, and intrapersonal characteristics. Homophily limits people’s social worlds in a way that has powerful implications for the information they receive, the attitudes they form, and the interactions they experience. “
These guys have had a little too much networking.
A few other researchers made a stab at it, but years ago and in equally arcane language.
Meanwhile, you may have noticed that the selfless networks want your money. You can either pay for some silly application, or to upgrade a resume, or to gain access to a magical list. This is a typical internet maneuver.
We can only conclude that the networking magnates are stifling research. They could do this by networking.
The irony is palpable.
What to do? The answer is simple. First, stop using the word “network” unless you’re a computer technician, a telecommunications worker, or an engineer.
Call it — let’s see — “asking people for help.”
Asking people for help has a long history. It dates all the way back to the beginning of the common era. Google “Good Samaritan.”
You are the guy beaten and left bleeding on the side of the road. (At least rhetorically.)
People are going to step around you or over you until the Samaritan passes by and takes mercy. Note that he is a stranger, and is not in your network.
Yet he offers you a job, even including benefits, dental, eyeglasses, what have you.
How long will you have to wait? Well, the Good Samaritan story is perhaps 2,000 years old.
Maybe that’s him, right up the road.
Science writer Abram Katz was laid off Nov. 13 from the New Haven Register after three decades at the paper. Previous entries on his encounters since then: