Table of Contents
Introduction
Everyone has heard the cliche about building a professional network. But with who? In this blog post I describe who to include in your professional network and why.
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Network with Your Peers
#1 Tip: Network with your peers.
This cohort has the most impact on your career. They will be around the longest and you’ll most likely be working with them the most. You were educated around the same time and in the same culture, and will move up in your career around the same time. This common set of experiences makes communication and relating to one another easier, and therefore easier to build a network.
Those Junior To You
Network with those more junior than you. Everyone needs a helping hand and someone likely gave you one in your career. Networking in this case might be as simple as reviewing their resume, providing career advice if asked to do so, or recommending them for another job. Also consider helping debug their code or asking about their weekend when you see them at the coffee machine in the break room.
The benefit to you is that building out a network of more junior engineers creates a broad network of potential team members for a project you might run in the future. They may also have insights into new trends that you aren’t privy to.
Those Senior to You
Everyone wants to network with those who are more senior with them. They think this is the easy street to raises, promotion and favor.
Be careful!
If you are going down this path then be sure to provide value. You can come off brown-nosy or as a ladder-climber if you aren’t careful about how you approach them. Be humble. In general, my suggestion is to let them find you.
Conclusion
The best way to network is through your peers. You have the most familiarity with them, you grew up in a shared culture and they will be around the longest.
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