Forget What You've Heard—Stop Networking! - Millennial Money with Cliff Mason

BIO

Cliff Mason is the author of Millennial Money. He is the Senior Writer of CNBC's Mad Money with Jim Cramer, and has been that program's primary writer, in cooperation with and under the supervision of Jim Cramer, since he began at CNBC as an intern during the summer of 2005. Mason was the author of a column at TheStreet.com during 2007, which he describes as "hilarious, if short-lived." He graduated from Harvard College in 2007. It was at Harvard that Mason learned to multi-task, mastering the art of seeming to pay attention to professors while writing scripts for Mad Money. Mason has co-written two books with Jim Cramer: Jim Cramer's Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich and Stay Mad For Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer). He is 100% responsible for any parts of either book that you did not like. Mason has also had a fruitful relationship with Jim Cramer as his nephew for the last 23 years and will hopefully continue to hold that position for many more as long as he doesn't do anything to get himself kicked out of the family.

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Mar.27

2:37 PM ET

Friday, 27 Mar 2009

Forget What You've Heard—Stop Networking!

Posted By:Cliff Mason

Topics:Employment | Recession | Stock Market

Stop "networking" already!

No, you are not making a good impression on anyone when you pass out your business card with your email address and phone number to virtually everyone you meet.

In fact, your glad-handing behavior makes you look like a jerk at best and a loser at worst. But now virtually everyone, and especially everyone under 30, is convinced that the key to a successful career is to behave like a totally transparent nitwit.

Guess what, not true!

Despite all the academic papers and the even more ubiquitous personal finance articles about the importance of "networking," they all kind of miss the point.

Network is a noun, it never should have become a verb, and the gerund "networking," is a travesty of language. But this is what business schools teach now. Maybe it's an improvement over the former curriculum, but I kind of doubt it.

How did we get here? A bunch of researchers set out to prove that who you know is more important than what you now. Since they were right, we ended up with a copious amount of literature about the importance of networks. And networks are really important.

That doesn't mean you can "network." The geniuses at all of these business schools took a pretty predictable observation about the value of relying on your business acquaintances, friends and family to get ahead, and instead of stopping there they barreled forward with all kinds of advice about how to "maintain," "expand," and "improve" your network.

So now every time I meet someone new I'm forced into an agonizing conversation where I have to hear too many boring details about this person who I couldn't care less about while they try to figure out if there's anything I can do to help them in the job market. Couldn't we just be like dogs and simply sniff each other's butts? It would be much more pleasant.

You can't "network." What you can do is what people have always done: be nice to your friends, and make a good impression on your superiors and your colleagues at work. It's really that easy.

Introducing yourself to as many random people as possible in order to advance your career is, amazingly enough, actually a bad use of your time.

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