Tracking Your Networking

Tracking Your Networking Because networking is so nebulous and difficult to see how it directly translates into a job, I hear a lot of reluctance.   Maybe if we can track our networking, well be better able to see the correlation. Leo Naioti presented a great session drawing the parallels of sales to job search (which we all know, but he put a wonderful spin on it). Leo is a leadership consultant with extensive HR experience as well as recent experience conducting his own job search. One of the many things he  strongly encouraged was tracking networking leads.   It makes sense.   Sales people have to talk about their pipeline or sales funnel all the time.   So should you.   There are different ways of doing this.   And what I am suggesting you track are networking leads, NOT JOB POSTINGS! Categorize your network into Friends/family (5 points), Coworkers/peer (3 points), Referrals (1 point).   Dan Schawbel recommended this scoring system in a post (which I can no longer seem to find). Data from an UpMo study of elite networkers shows the value of their network like this: This is why Dan Schawbels value system works.   You want to nurture your relationships with people who know you best (willing to recommend you). While networking is a number game, as is sales, it is also the quality of the relationships in your network that matter. You have to plant and nurture a lot of seeds to get something to grow.   Make sure the ground is fertile and plant away!