The old maxim, “It’s not what you know, but who you know,” really is a good way to sum up the importance and relevance of networking in the life of the job-seeker. Thus, it would not be a stretch to say that networking is the most important activity for a job-seeker to get a handle on to achieve success while searching for a job.

You may have already realized during your job search exploits that there are more jobs available than are listed in your local paper. This is because a majority of job openings are simply never advertised. They are held back by the business owners or left up to the job-seeker to take the initiative and contact the HR department or some other internal contact. This means that scores of unadvertised openings can be discovered only through talking to as many people as possible and letting them know you’re currently looking for employment. Since you may know “someone who knows someone”, you could be in a better position than those who limit themselves to ads in the classified section.

The relationships that you build through networking can help you in a number of ways:

1) those in your network may have information about hidden employment opportunities;

2) you may have contacts that can help while researching your career plans;

3) you can be inspired and motivated by some of great personal contacts you’ve made;

4) if your contact works for a company you have an interest in, you could gain valuable inside information regarding in-house opportunities that have not be released to the public yet.
But a question remains: Should a job seeker concentrate more about the quality of his network or the quantity of those who make up the network?

QUALITY VS. QUANTITY

Should you keep your network small and made up of quality professional and personal connections, or go for a larger number of contacts who are relevant to your search efforts but may or may not be what you would consider quality contacts? The fact is, you should really do your best to develop both aspects of your network, but doing this is far from simple. Time is the key factor here. You must have time to both build and more importantly maintain those relationships; to make them quality contacts takes even more time. Unfortunately, most of us only have so many hours in a day to devote to this. Therefore, one aspect or the other may suffer for it.

So how can you find a clear balance of quality connections with highly relevant people and maximizing the number of people in your network? In order to make the most of your efforts, you need to find out what sort of relationship quality will be enough to accomplish your job-seeking goals. Then you can build the numbers based upon this information. Of course, there is no one right solution all the time. Your specific needs will have to be revised when the context changes. Any strategies that you find help you build those stronger, quality relationships and reach out to more people should be time-sensitive, allowing for the constraints of your schedule.

QUALITY NETWORK

Though it may be obvious by now what a quality network is, it will be good to go over a few more points. A purely quality-based network will be small and limited in scope. Many people have networks made up of close friends, family members, and occasionally old acquaintances. Your time and attention is fixed upon maintaining these intimate relationships and using them to gather information about opportunities. Even if your quality network is made up of business contacts, they will be those that you’ve invested considerable time in, cultivating them into strong relationships.

QUANTITY NETWORK

Creating a network that is based on numbers involves the extension of your contacts. A primary way that you can do this is to ask those who are already in your network if they know other people that may have relevant information that you can use on the job hunt. This works on both the personal and professional levels. Not only can you ask your friend or neighbor if they might know somebody, but you can ask co-workers as well. That’s right; you just ask them. Most people will be helpful and maybe point to some potential leads. If you’ve taken the time to develop your quantity network relationship strategically, and targeted key players who can influence many of the other lesser contacts, you can use numbers to gain a decisive advantage and find what you want much faster and effectively.

HOW TO BUILD A QUALITY NETWORK WITH QUANTITY

You should start by building a core group of quality contacts and use them as a base to expand the quantity of the network, while striving to keep the quality of contact in check along the way. This provides the best of both: the range of a quantity-based network with the strength and reliability found in quality contacts.

古語說,"不在于你知道什么,而在于你認識誰."對于那些找工作的人來說，確實是一個很好的途徑來總結網絡的重要和貼切.然而，并不能由此進一步說,在求職者成功的獲得一份工作的過程中,上網是最重要的活動.

在你找工作的過程中或許已經意識到,實際的工作機會遠比本地報紙上列出的多得多.這是因為大多數的工作機會根本就沒有登廣告.他們被公司老板隱藏起來,或者這些工作機會需要求職者主動聯系人力資源部門以及進行其他的內部溝通.這就意味著要想發現這些沒有刊登廣告的工作機會,只有盡可能的與每一個人溝通,讓他們知道你當前正在尋找工作.由于你能夠認識"某人認識的某人",與那些將自己局限在各種分類廣告區域的求職者來說,你

可能會處于一個更好的競爭位置.

這種你通過互聯網建立的關系可以在如下的幾個方面幫助你:

1)你在網絡上認識的人或許會掌握關于那些被隱藏的工作機會的信息;

2)你有可能會接觸到那些在你的職業規劃中能夠幫助你的人;

3)你能夠被你曾經接觸到的一些非常出色的人所鼓勵,激發.

4)如果你有效的接觸到一家你所感興趣的公司,你就能夠獲得那些還沒有對外公布的,關于內部工作機會的有價值的信息。

但是存在一個問題:一個求職者是應該集中關注網絡關系的質量還是數量呢?

質量VS數量

你應該保持一個較小的網絡圈子,從而保證圈中朋友都有較高的職業能力和親密的個人關系,還是應該與那些關系到你職業的人廣泛聯系,但是這些人可能,也許不可能成為你希望接觸的那類人?真確的方法是,你網絡圈子的這兩個方面你都應該盡力的去發展,但是要做到這一點并不容易.時間在這里

就是一個非常重要的因素.你必須有時間去建立同時更重要的是維持那些關系;還要花更多的時間去使他們變成有價值的關系.

不幸的是,我們中的大多數在一天之中只有那僅僅的幾個小時去做這件事情.因此,其中的某方面我們可能沒辦法做好.

那么在你的網絡生活中,如何能找到一種新的平衡,能夠保證聯系人的質量和數量?為了讓你的努力保持高效,你需要找出哪種類型的關系將最有效的幫助你實現找到工作的目標.然后你就可以基于這些信息結交朋友.當然,計劃需要跟上變化.當希望工作的內容變化時,你這些特定的需求也將被修改.

你制定的這種能幫助你建立更高質量關系并且能結識更多人的策略在時間安排上必須靈活,能夠跟得上你的日程安排.

高質量的網絡關系

雖然現在對于什么是一個高質量的網絡關系的定義已經非常清楚了.但還是有必要強調一些關鍵點.一個純粹意義上高質量的網絡圈子應是較小并且限定范圍的.許多人的網絡圈子由親密的朋友,家人,有時候還有老熟人組成.你的時間和精力傾向于維持這些親密的關系并且通過他們得到關于工作機會的信息.即使你的高質量的網絡圈子是由生意上的聯系人組成的,你也應該投入較多的時間來和他們交流，培養他們成為你重要的網絡關系.

高數量的網絡關系

建立一個基于數量的網絡關系,以此涵蓋你廣泛的聯系人.首先要做的是去詢問那些你已經認識的網絡朋友,是否他們擁有能夠對你的求職有幫助的重要信息.這對與個人及專業層次都有好處.你不僅僅能詢問你的朋友或者鄰居,也可以詢問你的同事.對,盡管去問他們.多數人都會對你有所幫助并卻能夠對你做出一些潛在的引導.在戰略上,如果你已經很多時間在數量上擴展你的網絡關系,并且接觸了那些具有一定影響能力的關鍵人物,你就可以利用數量上的優勢去獲得決定性的勝利并且更快更有效率的獲得你想要的.

如何利用數量優勢來打早一個高質量的網絡關系

你可以一開始先建立一個高質量的核心關系群,然后一他們為基礎在網絡上進行數量的擴展,同時要始終竭力保持質量上的要求.這樣做對兩方面都有好處:既有數量基礎同時又有可靠質量保證的網絡關系.