How to Network for a Job When You Hate Networking

You probably get a lot of advice from Career Experts, like me, that you need to network to find a job.

[Insert eyeroll]

But, while you do get told to network, what you don’t get told is how to do it – or even better, how to make networking easier for yourself, particularly if you’re introverted, or socially shy.

So, I’m going to give you 3 of my favourite networking hacks!

These hacks came from the many people we’ve interviewed as part of our live show Career Care Package – who have successfully changed their careers.

These are the types of hacks I’ve taught my clients as part of my Straight to Shortlist Challenge which they have successfully implemented themselves.

I have used these types of hacks have myself.

There are so many I could give you, but I’ve showcased 3 of the best.

Thank me later.

3 Networking Hacks for Introverts or Shy People

Hack #1: Make yourself insanely useful to the organizer at a networking event

You can use this hack if you have to go to one of those networking events.

If you’re like me, you worry about being the most boring person in the room. You can feel like you’re the person who’s standing by themselves and hugging their drink. Or even the person people come up to chat to for a minute or two and then back off and make an excuse to leave.

So with this hack, I want you to make yourself insanely useful to the event organizer.

Usually, people who organize events are time-poor.

But, while they may be time-poor, they are well connected.

So make yourself known to the organizer of the event.

Before the event, offer to help out with things, like being on the registration desk, taking the food around, or being the photographer at the event.

It’s a way to easily break the ice with people you might meet there.

It’s an excuse to talk to people. People will actually come up to you!

It also serves the purpose of creating a relationship with the organizer.

People who organize events are actually hubs. So they may know a lot of people that could actually help you find a job!

One of my clients used this tactic. He was a co-organizer at a meet-up event. He didn’t know the organizer beforehand. They met face to face for the first time at the event.

Because my client helped out so much, the organizer actually offered to introduce him to recruiters who were present at the event looking for candidates.

As a side note, you’ll find this happens a lot at industry networking events/meet-ups. Good recruiters use these events as a way to meet potential clients and candidates.

By building a relationship with an organiser, not only are you building a relationship with somebody who can help you – when you’re actually at the event, it means that you’re not standing feeling awkward. You can quickly become part of the event.

Hack #2: Build a tribe

This hack comes from Ben, who we interviewed as part of Career Care Package.

In just 2 weeks, Ben got 7 interviews and 3 job offers!

And this hack really helped him.

So what Ben did was build his tribe.

He went out and found 8 like-minded individuals – all gung-ho, all looking for a job, and all connected with people on LinkedIn.

They shared tips with each other – which was great. But even more importantly they shared networks with each other. They actually helped each other with introductions.

Being introduced or recommended to somebody, means you are more likely to meet your target person who could be somebody at a company that you want to work with or somebody who’s doing a job that you want to do.

You can get some inside information and you’re using the power of a warm referral.

So Ben’s hack is around building that tribe – finding people who are as keen to move fast as he is by sharing tips, sharing introductions and sharing their network.

Hack #3: Crowdsourcing

This is my favorite hack!

It’s where you put yourself at the center of the network you want to attract.

I’ve done this myself when I was looking to meet more HR professionals, recruiters, and more people like me.

I connected up with somebody who was organizing a headhunting/resourcing conference.

These are the people who go out and headhunt people off the internet. They used to have a yearly conference in Sydney.

I made myself known to the organizer. I offered to promote the event via my Twitter network.

So on the day of the conference, I was tweeting out insights from the speakers, and mentioning them in my tweets.

Everybody who was following the hashtag for that conference was actually seeing me as the official tweeter. So they actually came to me – and we started to chat.

I followed up on LinkedIn and met up with some of them later on.

So it worked really well.

What’s more this tactic actually gave me a bigger online audience to the people who were following the hashtag but who were not at the conference.

Another one of my clients did this hack but in a different way.

She was actually from Colombia and had no local experience or network.

But she offered to write blog posts for somebody who was really well connected in the community and on LinkedIn.

In writing those blog posts she went out and interviewed other industry experts.

So, instantly she had a reason to go and meet people and was building a relationship as she was asking for their insights.

In those meetings the questions “Who are you?” and “What are you looking to do?” often came up.

Many of those people started helping her to look for a job.

So, crowdsourcing works really well, particularly if you amplify the impact by doing it online, so many more people can see what you’re doing.

I really hope you’ve enjoyed these three hacks!

And I hope you find them useful the next time you will be networking.

If you’d like to level up your network and get 5 meetings with your top 5 employers in 5 weeks, then join our Straight to Shortlist Challenge!

Here’s the video on our YouTube channel where I’ve talked about these 3 job networking hacks: