#28 Your network is not what you think it is

Most senior people tell me they have a great network.

And they might. But when I ask what their network actually knows about what they’re looking for right now?

Crickets.

Here’s what I see constantly:

someone starts a job search, they’ve got 2,000+ LinkedIn connections, years of relationships across multiple companies, plenty of people who’d take a coffee with them.

And none of those people could tell you what they’re looking for next.

That’s not a network. That’s a contact list you haven’t talked to in a while.

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The softball toss

One of the first things I have clients do — before they apply anywhere, before they even touch their resume — is go have what I call softball toss conversations.

The brief is simple: call someone who knows you, someone low-stakes, and try on your new story. Tell them what you’re looking for and why. See how it lands.

90% of people are nervous about this. Which honestly tells you everything about why their search isn’t moving yet.

But here’s what happens almost every time: they come back from that conversation going “oh yeah, she was really positive” or “he actually connected me with someone” or “she told me to talk to this other person.”

And we immediately blow past the most important part.

You just told someone — out loud, in your own words — what you want next.

And you didn’t die.

That’s not a small thing. That’s the door opening.

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What an activated network actually looks like

I think there are three stages to a network that’s actually working for you, and most people stall at stage one.

Stage one: people know the new you. Not the LinkedIn version of you from 2019. Not the “oh she’s still at Amazon, right?” version. They know what you’re moving toward and roughly why.

Stage two: they have a sense of direction. They don’t need your exact target list. But they know enough to pattern-match. “Oh, she’s looking at product roles in fintech” is enough for someone’s brain to start filing things away.

Stage three: you’re perking away in their brain. This is the one people underestimate. Two of my clients recently had the same experience — they had casual catch-up conversations early in their search, didn’t think much of it, and then months later got a DM: “Are you still looking?”

That message only exists because of those first two stages. The person knew the direction. They’d filed it away. And when something relevant came across their desk, your name was the one that came to mind.

That’s not luck. That’s infrastructure.

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Why most people get this backwards

The instinct when you start a job search is to go straight to outreach. Start messaging people, start applying, start “putting yourself out there.”

But if you haven’t done the work of figuring out how to talk about what you want — in language that makes sense to someone who’s never worked at your company — all that outreach is just noise.

Every conversation costs more energy than it should. Nobody quite knows how to help you. And the referrals you get are scattershot because the signal you’re putting out is scattershot.

The unsexy move is to slow down before you speed up.

Get your story right.

Test it on people who know you.

Let them start doing some of the work for you.

Because the best networking doesn’t feel like networking. It feels like catching up with someone and mentioning what you’re up to. And then letting time do its thing.

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One thing to try this week

Think of three people who know you well but don’t know what you’re looking for next. Not recruiters. Not hiring managers. Just people who know your work.

Have a catch up. Tell them what you’re thinking about. See what happens.

You might get a connection. You might get useful pushback on your story. You might just get the confidence of having said it out loud.

Any of those is a win. And you now have three people whose brains are working on your behalf without you having to do anything else.

That’s how networks actually work. Not as a thing you activate once, but as something that compounds quietly in the background while you get on with the rest of your search.