More connections means a bigger network, right? It’s not quite so simple.
One of the downsides of social media is that people have mistaken online connections and followers as people in their network. Some may be, but the line is blurry at best. Sadly, this gives people a false impression of the size and capability of their network.
We may indeed use the number of connections as a first order rough approximation. Someone connected to 20,000 people probably has a larger network than someone connected to 200. I say probably because the missing dimension is the strength of those connections.
Your network is not simply the number of people connected to you (first-degree connections). It’s not even the number of people connected to the people connected to you (second-degree connections). It’s the ability for you to utilize the people in your network. Put another way, it’s how likely someone in your network is to pick up the phone when you call. This applies not just to first degree connections, but even to second- or higher-degree people in your network.
Note that it does not mean that you’ll always get a yes, or the answer, or the help you seek. That very much depends on the question. It’s about whether your network will respond at all.
We could add a third dimension relating to the size of the ask you can reasonably make, but that typically falls off quickly. How many people in your network could you ask to give you five minutes to answer some questions you have? To spend thirty minutes hearing your presentation and giving you feedback? To read your book manuscript and provide feedback? To let you stay at their place for a week? The bigger the ask, the smaller the radius that will have a reasonable chance of saying yes. Whether you’re connected to 500 people or 5,000 people, the number who will let you stay at their place for a week is probably not that different for most people. For this reason, I don’t include this third dimension, but merely the number of people who would respond to you and consider your ask.
My network, really anyone’s true network, is composed of people who will pick up the phone when called. They won’t always say yes or have the time or capability to help; they certainly won’t all be able to let me stay with them for a week, but they will hear my ask. When you think about the size or power of your network, that’s the real metric that matters.
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