Networking may not pay off for everyone

11 Nov Networking may not pay off for everyone

Pick one:

1. Networking is an exhilarating way to advance my career, boosting my productivity and my career outlook—not to mention all the great connections I get to make!
2. Networking is an exhausting, but necessary, thing I have to do to advance my career, but sometimes I feel like it distracts me from my real work.

Researchers at the University of Bamberg in Germany had a theory that daily networking gives people an increase in productivity and career optimism.

Maybe they have extraversion bias, because the results surprised them.

They found that daily networking made career optimism go up—for people who already had a strong need for social affiliation. But people who had a low need for affiliation did not see an increase in career optimism. Some even reported lower work performance, because the networking took so much energy.

Researchers concluded that “people who are less inclined to interact socially should not force themselves to network.”

That’s not permission to take up permanent residence in the introvert’s comfort zone.

And it isn’t doom to introvert’s career ambitions.