Build A Network Before You Need It

Senior leaders tell me all the time that they have a strong network.
Then they start a job search and discover they don’t.

What they have is a list of contacts. That’s not the same thing.

In 20+ years on the hiring side, here’s the difference I’ve watched play out:

A list of contacts is a LinkedIn connection count. It’s the people who showed up at your last birthday on Facebook. It’s the former colleagues who would politely take a call if you reached out cold.

A network is the much smaller group of people who would actually do something for you. Pick up the phone for a hiring manager. Forward your resume with a personal note. Spend 45 minutes on a strategy call when you’re stuck.

Most senior leaders confuse the two — until they need the second one and discover they only built the first.

Here’s the harder truth. A real network is built by being the kind of person who shows up for other people in their inflection points, when there’s nothing in it for you. Then, much later, when you’re in your own inflection point, the network shows up for you. Not because you asked. Because you’d already deposited.

The leaders I’ve watched have the easiest senior searches almost never had to “activate their network” when they started looking. The network had been activated all along.

If you’re not in a search yet that’s the work to be doing now. Reach out to three people this week with no agenda. Ask how they are. Send the article. Make the introduction. Build the deposits.

If you are in a search and discovering your network is thinner than you thought, that’s painful information, but it’s also the most useful information. Build differently from here.

When was the last time you reached out to someone in your network purely to check in, with no ask attached?