The effects of networking on your career and your upward mobility

Flavian DeLima recently sent me an interesting report which I have been digesting over the past week or so. The basic premise is that neworking is a huge factor in how you get your next job and even how much you get paid in that job.

637 professionals were interviewed by the Pepperdine University business school and the following questions were answered:

• How do professionals currently leverage professional and social networks?  
• How does networking impact current and future professional opportunities?
• What skills are most important in building effective, professional networks?
• What skills are most important in building effective, professional networks? "elite" professionals with heightened networking skills; if so, how do those heightened skills impact their access to more professional opportunities and, ultimately, their income?
• What practices do the "elite" follow that the non-elite do not?
• Which professional networking tools are most effective and why?

Some surprising findings came out (which may not be surprising to NewPathers since we get together face to face often):

• effective networking really does drive career success
• dramatic increases in income can be derived from effective networking
• building long-lasting, deep relationships are key to effective networking & online tools are only a small part of building those relationships
• 2 areas that "elite" networkers need help with: getting new contacts and getting meaningful introductions to new contacts

If you have comments and opinions please enter them in the comments below -- I am keen to hear what you have to say and whether we can take some of the suggestions to heart to improve NewPath.