Never Eat Alone is a business classic on the power of building relationships to get ahead in life. In this article, I will give a review of the book and relay some of the truly impactful advice within it.
Keith Ferrazzi, the author of this book is a master of networking. He’s been the CEO of several companies and runs his own business, he’s been named on of the “Top 40 under 40,” and his methods are taught at many MBA programs. The purpose of the book is to help you create a networking strategy, learn to connect with others who can help you, manage your network to meet even more people who can help, use your network to achieve your goals, and stand out in your network and provide value to others.
The Mindset
Your new parachute
The book begins by describing the current economic reality. Companies are no longer loyal to their people and people are no longer loyal to their companies. “Lifetime corporate employment is dead,” Ferrazzi solemnly notes. However, your network can afford you the same loyalty that was once offered by corporations. If you’re out of a job you won’t panic nearly as much if you know you can call someone and have an interview lined up. If you need anything at all, whether it’s money, advice, or a job, you can find it in your network. The relationships you’ve built will be your parachute.
Ferrazzi says the key to success is generosity. The flip side of this is to not be afraid to ask for generosity. He mentions how he gets irked when he hears young people tell him, “I’m sorry I can’t accept your offer because I’m not sure I’ll be able to repay you.” Give when you can, and don’t refuse to accept someone else’s kindness. Help others but don’t be afraid to let them help you.
This was a huge takeaway for me. I used to feel uncomfortable reaching out or receiving help from busy, successful people until I realized one reason they got to their position is because of their willingness to give, which is an effective method of connecting. Giving is connecting, and receiving is connecting too. In an era of self-centeredness, people remember the generous ones.
One thing that really stood out to me was his tip that it rarely hurts to ask and that boldness often works in one’s favor. This is a core tenet of game. At one point Ferrazzi even compares audacity in networking to “dating.” He mentions that to this day whenever he calls or reaches out to someone he doesn’t know, he has some fear of rejection, but the important thing is to do it anyway. Nothing creates opportunities like having a willingness to ask.
Ferrazzi is honest about his mindset: “Either I ask or I’m not successful. That fear always overrides my anxiety about rejection or being embarrassed.”
The Skill Set
Don took multiple risks to land his job at Sterling Cooper
Find the people who can help you achieve your goals and reach out to them. Do your homework about the people, search their names online and learn about them. Ferrazzi calls this “warm calling,” which is similar to “warm approaching.” Be methodical about your calls or emails, just like you would be methodical about which girls to approach. When reaching out, mention a mutual friend or acquaintance, or the value you can add to their lives.
Even if you’re looking for a job or coffee, be ready to talk about the ways you can make their lives easier in some way with the skills or experience you have. Frequently these people will not return calls or messages. Don’t let that discourage you; continue to call and write and when they finally do respond, don’t act annoyed. Don’t make it uncomfortable for the other person.
Rules of warm calling:
- Convey credibility
- State your value proposition
- Impart urgency and convenience—be prepared to do what it takes to meet with the person
- Be prepared to compromise
Always follow up with a thank you note. Doing this will put you above the crowd. And after connecting with someone, always be sure to follow up. Following up within 24 hours is key, so send an email as soon as you can after having met someone and receiving their contact info. Be sure to stay on their radar and send monthly follow ups to stay in touch.
What you should include in follow ups:
- Express gratitude
- Include item of interest (mutual interest, a joke from conversation)
- Reaffirm commitments you have made
- Be brief and to the point
- Address person by name
- Use email AND snail mail
- Send it as soon as possible
- Thank those who have set you up with the person
Super-Connectors
Always follow up to thank them
If you can find one person who has many contacts and can build a relationship with them, you will have a huge advantage. If this person can vouch for you and introduce you to other people, you will have an open door to many opportunities.
8 Professions For Super-Connectors
- Restaurateurs: Make a point of becoming a regular, meeting the staff, and get to know the owner and he might open his list of contacts to you
- Headhunters
- Lobbyists
- Fundraisers: People who raise money for others are usually connected to important people
- Public relations people
- Politicians
- Journalists: These people aren’t very difficult to get in contact with. I sent out a couple of emails the other day and within an hour they responded.
- Authors, bloggers, gurus: No brainer here.
There is a chapter about small talk and how important it is. Any guy who learns game should be proficient in small talk. Read Day Bang and learn how to ramble and drop bait. That book is a great conversationalist’s manual. The most important point in the chapter is to be the first to say hello in a situation where you want to meet new people to add to your network. Don’t stand around like a loser at a night club. Take the initiative. Ask them questions about themselves, pay attention, remember their names, and use them.
Turning Connectors Into Compatriots
Do your homework before reaching out
The only way to get people to do something is to make them feel important. Every person’s deepest desire is to be recognized, validated, and liked. If you can make a person feel that, you are in. The chapter titled “Health, Wealth, and Children” claims that those are the three most important topics to people. If you can add value or advice about any of those three things, you generate loyalty.
Real power comes from being indispensable. Help someone else by using your network to connect them and you will develop even more relationships that you can later use for your own goals. You gain influence when you sensibly hand out contacts, information, and goodwill to others.
Pinging
“You have to feed the fire of your network or it will wither and die,” Ferrazzi says.
You must stay on people’s radar if you’re going to need them later. Send them monthly emails, forward articles that might interest them, call them on their birthday. An example he gives of staying in contact when pressed for time:
“Hi, X. Just landed in Y and it made me think of you. No time to meet this trip but I just wanted to touch base.”
Using the book’s outline, I’ve sparingly sent emails asking people for advice or opinions to stay in their thoughts. I’ve also used the “value-added ping” where I forward relevant articles, but do so only occasionally.
The Digital Age And Giving Back
The book gives guidance on the reality of social media, and becoming the “king of content.” There is some useful stuff here, and it is very interesting, particularly for people who want to build or maintain a strong online presence.
Many people want to start a blog or a website, but don’t know what to write about. The question you should ask yourself is, “How can I be helpful to other people?” Don’t write what you think will be interesting, write what other people will be interested in. What do other people need, and how can you write about it in a way that is compelling or provocative?
A businessman understands being interesting and provocative boosts support in the digital age
Ferrazzi talks about the importance of candor and authenticity in building an audience. I think the popularity of Return of Kings has more than demonstrated this. The raw honesty of our columns connects with people on a deep level.
The Importance Of Being Interesting
Ferrazzi writes that he’ll often give a speech at a college and a student will approach him and say he really enjoyed the speech. Ferrazzi will ask the kid what he liked about it and the kid won’t have much to say. Not a good way to connect.
Ferrazzi discusses the famous Airport Question. If you have two people, all else being equal, ask yourself, “If I were trapped in a metropolitan airport for a few hours, would I want to spend it with this person?” Develop yourself, expand your interests, learn to tell a story, and have a point of view.
There is so much more practical advice including approaching celebrities, connecting with journalists, and joining clubs and organizations to expand your network. A quote that sums up the book’s main point: “Autonomy is a life vest made out of sand.”
I’ve used many of the techniques in the book with great results. Much of it aligns with the central tenets of game. Strongly recommended.
Read More: 3 Tips For A Successful Book Launch
Start building your professional network by not dealing with women, EVER. A sure fire pathway to (probably) no promotions or wealth generating job opportunities, and only HR nightmares and false sexual harassment claims / “patriarchy” nonsense.
This.
P.S. Never work under a woman or in a company with a female majority. Thank me later.
Fortunately, when women do go into business, it’s usually piddling bullshit like a yoga studio, chocolate shop or greeting card store. Nothing a (normal) man would be interested in anyway. It’s not like women are starting general contracting businesses or anything useful.
…not true, especially for women of color…most of the women within my proximity are power player professionals in finances, accounting, software development and similar high charged positions…but as Hubert and KZOO inferred, they’re beyotches when in charge and doing their thing behind the cherry wood.
Seconding this, based on life experience.
Been there, done that . . . lesson learned. It was a painful lesson to say the least.
There’s a reason most women would rather work for a guy.
Had this unfortunate situation with my first professional job out of college. On the job trainer, direct manager, territory manager — all women. My team of 10 – I was 1 of 3 males. Two left for maternity leave just after I arrived, another was pregnant. I and the others had to pick up their slack, while I was training (I was expected to finish their work while doing my own beginner’s work and training courses). My territory decided to demote my direct mgr. So to keep a spot in the office, she started giving me, the new guy, bad reviews suddenly. I talked to my territory and she said she’d deal with it and understood. Two weeks later, my direct filed a complaint, claiming I made “indirect disparaging comments about her weight”. I was terminated, and she took my spot (her former spot). Other male worker was a sell out; I could just smell the his fear of women oozing out his pores. 2nd guy was tight with some leads in other departments — lesson learned. Good articles here.
I’ll definitely say that female peers have not given me the same opportunities as my male peers, who are always down to talk about business.
Could just be personal experience, but it’s enough that I pretty much only network seriously with men.
I noticed males will often pull others up and help them, but females tend to pull others back. It is a wonder women have the reputation as being the “nurturing” types. Maybe because they see a safe and stagnant world as nurtured. More like sterilized. I will take my male contacts any day. The few female contacts I have are contacted to much more important men.
Nurturing their own cunt produce but they hate other people’s kids!
They’ll nurture whoever they like (friends, children) and will shoot down anyone who seems a threat, especially younger and/or better looking women
Don’t be that positive about males. I’ve been pulled back A LOT and most of the time it were guys doing that shit to me. Most of them were kinda Alpha and competitive, but simply jealous of the succes of their own friends/colleagues.
If you work with a lot of nerds/betas/losers, also expect to be pulled down, but they will backstab you or talk behind your back instead of doing it openly.
Women are jealous of each other and never want to see someone else better than themselves. On the other hand, men have a healthy competitiveness nature and work well in teams.
All the performance reviews I looked at show that men outperform women.
The problem with companies now is that HR is actually a burden and an ineffective department in the company. It is better to outsource HR services and let qualified managers do the hiring instead of an immature girl with a two year diploma make important decisions and hire the wrong people.
Its the Pareto principle. Keep it in the places where you can get the most bang for your effort.
Networking with women is mainly for sex. For serious matters as our careers, you’re right on point in keeping it with high value and driven men.
Typically it’s shoved down their throats via feminist conditioning for 4+ decades now, that women are at a disadvantage at work. So many, many women don’t want to see another woman surpass them at work and project the perfect facade to maintain that dominance, but they ESPECIALLY don’t want to see a guy, especially a “new guy” surpass them and will plant cancerous seeds as obstacles to trip you up.
Who works well in the workplace are Masculine men to Masculine men, and Masculine Men to (some) feminine women, nothing else. A hottie cougar just hired me at new job I’m starting. I’ll be trained by an ugly uptight feminized harpie however. If I make it past her, should be fairly smooth sailing. Corporate game is as rough as dating game to navigate. Sometimes tougher.
I agree with your statement that feminine women (and I don’t mean HB 10s here… just nice girls]) can bring some value to the workplace.
I’ve even met a couple exceptions to the rule.
But by and large, a handful of driven masculine men in the workplace is a force to be reckoned with.
At my work place, I rarely ever talk to most of bitchy women there. The only ones I talk to are the ones that are sweet and feminine, which is about two. Everyone else I completely ignore.
Not sure if I’ve gained much from doing this, but I’m respected, and my day is a lot smoother.
As a woman in a STEM major I have recruiters tripping over themselves to give me offers while other girls get passed over and complain about the patriarchy, Those are the idiots showing up for interviews in dreadlocks or a red clingy dress instead of showing people respect which gets you respect in turn.
If a woman dresses modest and elegant, remains calm and acts professional and civil, jobs and oportunities will rain from the sky. For whatever reason, people want/need girls in their offices (diversity quotas?) and they all would rather work with a discrete and polite girl than a party slut who just needs a day job to pay for gin when dudes won’t
I have a degree in Computer Science and I work in the IT field. 100% agree. My company employees a lot of women, and it’s a breathe of fresh air to talk to a truly feminine woman at work.
My point being you don’t need to be that great, or even good looking: just cover your knees and boobs, say goodmorning and don’t rant about personal stuff : friends != co-workers
Woah and just look at that diversity.
That should say enough.
Word. I’ve got a working with women in tech article in the pipe. Good timing.
When women don’t get promoted they blame it on some old boy network. Then they start imagining gender bias in the word choice of other males who had absolutely nothing to do with their situation. When men get passed over for promotion, they focus on improving their numbers on their own performance, or if their numbers are already near the top then they start putting their resume out there to get hired by a competitor for a bigger salary. Men are less likely to sit around and bitch about other people around them, which is “negative” networking.
I see that women who mention gender bias are usually incompetent idiots who would be just as useless if they were men
Great point. All western women are professional and social dead ends. They are good for banging and increasing a man’s status, showing that he is skilled in hunting and bagging sexually desirable women.
Beyond that, women add zero value to a man. And, if not kept on a short leash, can actually detract from a man’s value. They certainly are parasitic in regards to men’s wealth and resources. However, they’re also leeches to a man’s status. That’s why men should return to meeting and dealing elusively with men, sending the women to the parlor to return to their needlepoint until called for.
As for the “Bitch in Charge” above, she needs to take that g’damn cigar outta her mouth and replace it with her man’s phallus.
There are some women out there very worthwhile to meet in a professional setting, especially older heads of HR (late 50s – early 60s) and are easy to peg for their looks, usually grandma sweet style. They know all of a company’s secrets and can tell you how to get a leg up on a tough recruitment process
100 up votes.
Sex aside, it’s rare that a woman brings anything of value to the table. I encourage any young man who will listen to focus on self-improvement and getting ahead at work or in business, rather than worrying about planning dates and pleasing women.
Nice summary and in the final analysis it comes down to sales. Can you sell your value to others and help others dot he same?
Glad I never worked in the corporate world . It would drive me insane
Thank you, Rod. This is a very timely article indeed.
Corporations sure arent loyal to their employees anymore, and I wonder if pissed off employees havent been stealing and selling corp secrets. I never read anything about this, maybe its all kept under wraps?
Maybe that would be a career for today- corporate counterespionage??
I work for a family owned business. They are loyal in ways that corporations aren’t. However, there is more micro management and “what have you done for me lately” attitude.
I could make a deal that saves my boss 10 million dollars and he won’t say a word. That’s ok. Clowns, chimps and women work for applause. But the next day I can miss .47 cents (really happened) on a 50k invoice and I will hear it all fucking day.
Grass is always greener. Sometimes I wish I worked for a big faceless multi national.
You work for a family owned business. In Construction.
Which of the five familes do you work for haha
Hey, that’s his bidness. You wanna know? FUGEDDABOUDIT!
FUGEDDABOUDIT!
no, like this
ha. nah, it’s not like that.
I almost dropped dead when I first saw this.
https://www.diversifiedriskmanagement.com/careers/corporate-investigator/
Sounds like it could be a bit dangerous. Notice the starting salary- same per hr as they want to pay fastfood workers haha
people go on and on about stupid shit like skull and bones and the freemasons or the IllJewminati or whatever stupid conspiracy du jour…meanwhile SHRM is out there creating real problems for real men and we just let it happen. smh. Let’s talk about how the rothchild family is hiding all the gold in area 51 and planning on uniting the jews and the blacks, i am sure that is a real threat…..but SHRM….yeah, whatevs. let a bunch of fat chicks decide how the world will really work. I wish the conspiracy theory people would use the obvious energy and intelligence they have on something fucking useful.
They are starting to talk about pro femenist/anti-male politics and wider (“reverse”) racism more and more. In fact one of the major conspiracy boards always seems to have a topic about these issues on the main page…
I have been networking with my male professors and tons of students in every single major. Yeah, even art and music majors which are not seen as useful. In fact, college is mostly good for networking. Education is secondary. You can learn on your own, but always take advantage of situations where you can network.
Will keep that in mind going into uni in the fall
Find your favorite professors early on in your department and check in on them in their office hours if you have time. Good luck at uni! ^_^
This true, I haven’t had a job interview in the 5 years and pretty much got by, by simply showing up and doing what has to be done. An expertise in a variety of things is more important nowadays. Specialization has gone the way of the dinosaur.
A particularly helpful one I found is the “Informational Interview”. When I wanted to move in a new career path I seemed to have an aptitude for, but with no experience, I reached out to people I found through LinkedIn, asked straight up for a meetup, to discuss what the whole shit was about, and what they did day to day. Read up a ton in the area too.
And this friends, I cannot recommend enough. Read a Ton in your Fields! Know so much about your business, you dream of it!! There are changes rippling through your fields now, which if you’re an ignorant ass, would soon be out on our ass on the streets.
So I met up, some accepted, some disregarded, but I fired on, much as it is in “Game”. So I kept at it till I got into the field, and I’ve never looked back.
I don’t care if you’re a Janitor, read up on that shit. Two hours per day every weekend and on the drive to the Office. Get an audio book, instead of fucking off with the news and music.
How should you go about networking considering the majority of people you meet will be leftist, liberal types more or less.?
Cause where I’m coming from (just finished college) I had very little motivation to meet new people in college considering the typical college environment that we all know too well.
You can join business networking griuops which tend to be mostly men and conservative int eir outlook.
Small business people live in the real world and tend to have little tolerance for BS and tend to have a conservative outlook in life..
Also get a Linked in profile if you haven’t doen so yet..
Sometimes in groups as such, you’ll surprisingly discover how many people stay neutral in the workplace / marketplace, but when refined into smaller focused groups, open up about their non-liberal, or neutral stance on life in general.
I have a nice LinkedIn profile but I don’t really get anything out of it
Try to reach out to the people you would like to be with, no matter how unreachable they seem, like CEOs or department heads. Write them a thoughtful email, ask to meet for coffee or something. The “no” is guaranteed, and even if only one accepts, they may become valuable friendships for life
A woman, no matter how high in the hierarchy, will seek a man whose lead to follow. What if you, the simple peasant, manage to become that man? In my experience, having a 35-40 year old somewhat bangable woman as a manager is very often a better option than having a man as a manager. Gaming her a little bit could make her turn a blind eye to your inadequacies. This is not always the rule, of course, but sometimes having a female manager can be a lot better than having a male manager.
Why can having a female manager be a lot better than having a male manager? You didn’t really make it clear why… can you elaborate on your experience and draw comparisons between the time you hired/had male managers vs female managers and the differences in their approach and results?
Think about joining a professional/fraternal organization like the Rotaries in your area of town. Although these orgs are quickly dying out you can still use them to help maintain your personal network.
Connection,nepotism, corrupt shit, I don’t care, do get involved but don’t abuse the loop holes and the advantages of the aforementioned terms. Build a network little by little and work your way up. Get to know people who work in your company, go on trips with them and help out, got to the office parties and you might even squeeze some info from a drunk mouth. It might be the key to a promotion or whether to not toil for no recompense. I think it was Mohamed who said something like “..alcohol goes in, truth comes out”.
I just found out that 60-70% of the people in the place I work now have some sort of relation to important people in management. They don’t care how they got the job and why should you!
Ciao
“I just found out that 60-70% of the people in the place I work now have some sort of relation to important people in management. They don’t care how they got the job and why should you!
Ciao”
This.
Merit, has been redefined to be 90% who you know, 5% what you know, and 5% PC Bullshit.
So for those of us with no trust funds cushing us up, Network like your life depends on it.
If anythings gonna happen, its gonna happen out there. So get out, and Connect, Connect, and Connect!
Great article but some of the comments seem to have missed the point. Networking isn’t about meeting like-minded people it’s about meeting the right people to get ahead. You need to leave your personal opinions about women etc. behind when you network to reach its full potential. It’s time to put on your professional face and talk to who you need to even if they are female.
I’ve found the best tactic is always to give genorously regardless of your personal opinion of someone and later you will reap the benefits.
I have read Never Eat Alone and recommend it.
After reading all the various manosphere blogs about book writin’ and blog producin’ I distilled my personal experiences into a man’s guide on how to find work. Networking factors into it but I advise the reader to call influential men in his target industry and set an appointment to meet with them to sell your services. The chapter on cold calling helps you get over this hurdle.
I am running an Amazon promotion today and you can download a free unabridged copy, no strings attached.
http://amzn.to/1QrVbN3
When I wrote the book I carefully formatted it for a 6×9” printed book. I should have understood the ebook publishing process before I started as epubs are not formatted the same as print books, so a lot of the visual appeal I built into it got lost on actual publication. Was still a worthwhile endeavor to write, format, and publish an ebook. I wrote a blog post about some experiences I had with that process :
http://wp.me/p6QFjS-2W
I recently relocated to another town and am starting from scratch to build up a business. Everything I said in my book is coming into play as I struggle to eke out a living. 60 year old men do not get job interviews. You have to develop an alternative strategy.
There’s a law of diminishing returns to the whole networking stratagem, especially if people use it solely for career advancement, as it’s a system that promotes only certain types of people who are generally highly deficient in other ways, like knowing how to take calculated risks, knowing how to negotiate deals with suppliers on prices, knowing how to improvise etc. I’ve heard from companies whom I deal with about the brightest young things (males and females) who get promoted through good old fashioned ass kissing, but, after six months they were fired because they didn’t know how to do anything else than kiss ass.
The only true way to network is through developing an idea in the form of a project that clearly and demonstratively increases the profitability and efficiency within an organisation. This way you’re networking without even trying and you’re getting noticed from the senior managers, but, never be afraid to have the confidence to say you’ll go else where unless you get promoted and/or a substantial pay increase.
That’s reverse networking. When you accomplish something of worth, everyone wants to network with you all of a sudden for their own gain, even if they bring nothing to the table… (or it’s your job to find out *if* what they’re bringing will drain you or benefit both parties)
It’s a 2-way road. Readers need to ask themselves “do I want to be wealthy, does wealth = success?’ -AND- “If I define success as wealth, am I sacrificing independence and simplicity in life for networking?” One thing I do NOT want to do to myself is rather than feel like I’m indebted to a person, replacing that single person indebtedness with an entire “network” that becomes an excuse to be “busy”constantly, that I feel guilty if I find myself NOT having the time to maintain.
Networking is fantastic, don’t get me wrong, and when I focused on it most, I made the greatest $$ in my life… but that didn’t make life a LOT easier, it rather increased all of everything until I mitigated my new amplified existence. Probably equally important to networking, or more so, is scalability of your life in short order. So I think there needs to me a massive stress on this topic towards constant refinement of a network. I know folks with enormous networks who are always “busy” when you ask them, and somehow seemingly spinning their wheels in life for over a decade. It’s not always WHO you know, but most importantly HOW you know them. << Which can take some long-term convincing.. there’s no faking true friendship, valued trust is everything.
I’ve learned to spot why people want to be my friend a mile away, and assume they can about me. 80/20 Pareto’s really needs to be refined to 95/5. It’s the information age, the key to the game is filtering and resisting the massive amount of useless information crammed down your throat, including networkable prospects.
Yet, if you have a very structured life you want to stick to (or haveto) sometimes you simply don’t have the time to be extremely generous and still complete your own (unfinished) projects. For instance, if I lift weights 4 days a week, after a 8-5pm job and enough people from my network request assistance, how much opportunity cost, shifting from one touch point, drawing time from my structure (which is my own strategic plans tactically in action) is it worth risking completion of my tactics for, mindful that tactics performed comprise the total of a strategic goal being completed?
Just some thought guys. Networking books are available by the 1000s. Before your phone is texted and ringing off the hook 24/7, develop a plan for constant refinement, and learn to be quickly scalable with everything. Fast scalability is the #1 downfall of middle management and internal operations from my experience.
Find the good in everyone, and decide if it aligns with your good. Then there’s timing, if you’re not prepared for the added attention, or forth giving, you’ll want to shoot yourself stressing out sitting in traffic because it’s very easy to bite off more than you can chew. You can mass market your own demise as I like to say, by always being late, incomplete, overstressed, too available/unavailable. Pick a few things you want to do very well, and network around those things… not 5 things, not 10, just 2-3 tops. Be weary of those stating “just do a lot more of everything, better, all the time, right now.” Cheers.
Very good post, should be pinned at the top. It’s all about the balance, yin and yang etc.
Why don’t ROC creates its own semi closed network of likely minded males to support themselves and help each other ? The systemic forces, show that they are not going to allow mainstream political expansion. It is not without historical precedent. Secret societies are created in a hostile regime. Practically the ruling class of today is created and ruled by closed groups of promoting interests masons, Jacobin. . The antitraditional antichristian anti ethnic nationalism ideology of West was created by them.
I know I’d join that. Being surrounded by hot, steamy cocks gets me rock hard.
lol projection much?
I love cock.
I am sure your father and ancestors are proud of you. At least this ill lineage vine will end. I hope some moderator deletes this comment.
Oh stop it, silly goose. You know you want to touch my weenie. Don’t be shy.
There are a lot of decent points in here. If you’re a software engineer or in tech in general you have to be careful with Headhunters/Recruiters. This is with regards to your LinkedIn profile(which people in the tech industry put an overemphasis on).
The recruiter will almost always have a paid LinkedIn account and therefore can “add you to their network” and they are a little too willing to do so. The long-term negative side-effect of this is that, if you’re not careful, your LinkedIn contacts will be dominated by fly-by-night recruiters which can affect the metrics by which your profile is heuristically evaluated by LinkedIn’s algorithms. So, be careful who you add to your LinkedIn network.
The best way to deal with a recruiter in this regard I’ve found is to send them a polite email stating that you’re currently engaged in an opportunity but despite that you’d be interested in hearing from them in future about other potential engagements.
I’m not on Linked In but I notice the squirrel mentality of so-called recruiters. When recruiters come calling and haven’t even looked at my resume, they get an earful from me.
Right, and when you’re in a technical field it is particularly noticeable when a recruiter doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Git is not an acronym but often it will be treated as such(“Do you know GIT?”) Albeit pedantic, this has an impact on the vetting process and could even mean a completely incorrect evaluation of your skills.
What do you mean that they can affect the metrics? How is it bad if you have a lot of recruiters in your contacts?
Because recruiters can’t testify or endorse your skills. Only people you’ve actually worked with can. I should’ve made this point originally. WRT the metrics point, LinkedIn scores your profile. I’m pretty sure being connected more legitimate professionals in your field than recruiters affects this score.
Fuck small talk
I fucking hate it.
When it comes to networking I noticed that most people contact you, because you have something that they want. They pretend to be very interested and come up with nice talks, but if they get what they want and they don’t need you anymore, they will easily cease the contact and you will rarely hear something from them.
And if you need something from them, they come up with lame excuses like they’re busy and don’t have time. The real reason is that they simply don’t want to help you, because you arent interesting anymore. Most people who are into networking are parasites and will use you for their own benefits. Of course it can be beneficial, but dont think people will contact you because they like you or something like that. Networking is largely fake.
The Golden Rule: Business is about relationships, not money. Kick ass at relationships, and you won’t have to work to find the money.