Is your LinkedIn profile up to date? Do you approach potential collaborators at conferences, meetings, or receptions? What about alumni gatherings? Did you remember to hand out your business card at that last event?
And what about a follow-up email, just to check that person did not forget that they ran into you? Are you even active on twitter? Advice on effective networking is abundant.
Not even one second after typing the term networking into our search engine we are faced with over two million contributions telling us how, where, and with whom we should best engage in networking activities. The underlying premise being — of course — that networking is essential for our personal and professional lives. Is it really, though? And if not, how can we discern whether networking activities really pan out?
Accordingly, it is not surprising that networking has been connected to various indicators of career success such as performance, growth in salary, and career optimism. However, the vast majority of studies have looked at the consequences of networking over longer periods i.
It is also questionable whether the effects of networking are comparable across individuals. Furthermore, studies that did focus on individual differences with regard to networking almost exclusively adopted a trait approach — that is, they described how individuals engaged in networking and not why or if they benefit from engaging in networking. To address these issues, we conducted a study looking not only at short-term, i. People high in need for social engagement have a desire to be socially involved and strive to make social situations as affiliative as possible, that is, create feelings of warmth and closeness.
