Networking is less dumb than you might think

I used to think of networking somewhat like this:

1. Talk to people
2. ????
3. Career success?

I have recently figured out two things that networking does, and I want to write up an explanation for my fellow autistics. I don’t think this is everything that networking does—my model of networking still has a lot of question marks in it—but I hope it’s helpful for everyone else who is like “but WHY is employment gated behind my ability to make small talk?”

First, people want to hire employees and contractors who are good at their jobs. They can figure out whether you’re good at your job through your resume, interviews, portfolios, work tests, etc. But they also want to hire employees and contractors who are pleasant to work with, professional, reliable, responsible, and not going to embroil the company in a sexual harassment lawsuit. You can sort of get at these traits in an interview, and people do—friends who have hired people say it’s remarkable how many people will respond to a thinly disguised “will you show up on time to work and not steal anything?” with “I intend to show up late and bring a hammer so I’m not limited to merely stealing things that aren’t nailed down.” But once they eliminate the obvious red flags, hiring managers struggle to distinguish responsible people from skilled liars.

But if the hiring manager trusts Alice, and Alice knows you, then Alice can vouch for you. Alice can say, “I’ve known Bob for many years. He’s a kind and dutiful person who doesn’t create drama and who always turns in his work on time.” It’s very hard to figure out this kind of character quality through formal job interviews, but it’s pretty easy to figure it out through normal social interaction. So many hiring managers use normal social interaction to supplement their hiring.

Second, success in many jobs requires trading favors. Take writing, for instance. You are very unlikely to succeed as a writer without a fuckton of favors from other people: linking your writing to their readers, critiquing your writing and giving you suggestions for how to improve, explaining concepts you don’t understand, providing research recommendations, agreeing to interviews, passing along work that they don’t have time for but that you can do, teaching you how to interview someone or read a study or write a book proposal, glaring at you until you say “I’m a professional writer” without apologizing or adding “sort of.”

Now, people don’t want to give favors to just anyone. Of course, people are more likely to do you favors if they like you. But even more important is their feeling that you’re a good participant in the Favor Economy, that even if they never need a favor from you you’re paying it forward by doing favors for someone. If you want people to pass along work to you or help you with your book proposal, you should be willing to offer feedback to newer writers or to talk someone through how inflation rates work. As I’ve written before, this kind of reciprocity is how we have nice things.

On this model of networking, going to parties and meeting people is important, but not sufficient. You should be a kind, pleasant, responsible person—the sort of person you’d want to hire if you were a hiring manager. You should strive to build deep enough relationships with people that they can accurately testify to your character. And you should proactively seek out opportunities to be (genuinely) helpful. The more helpful you are, the more likely it is that other people will want to help you.

Networking often seems fake and inauthentic. But this kind of networking doesn’t have to be. You’re showing people what you’re actually like (which, hopefully, is a responsible and pleasant person). And by doing favors for others you’re building up the social fabric, which leaves everyone better off.