Dee Davis (00:00)
Good morning and welcome to the Management Under Construction podcast. I'm Dee Davis.
Brad Wyant (00:04)
And I'm Brad Wyant
Dee Davis (00:05)
today we are going to talk about networking and why this is a key element for your career
a lot of things that can be classified as networking, but what we're specifically talking about is networking yourself for your career.
because let's face it, wherever you're working right now is probably not where you're gonna be in five years, 10 years. That's what the stats are telling us is that people are changing jobs more rapidly than ever before. Although that is slowing down just a little bit. I saw some stats recently that said it's gone from an average of two years to an average of about three and a half years. So it's slowing down a little bit, but still you're not gonna be in the job that you're in right now today.
more than likely in the next five years. So how do you get that next job?
Brad, what has been your experience with professional networking?
Brad Wyant (00:59)
Good question Dee think It's definitely been an aha moment for me in business school to learn about the different statistics that we're going to talk about during the podcast here. How meaningful networking is. I have viewed professional networking more as a while you're in the career you're in. It's good to know more people for the sake of being able to do your job better to build connections that enable you to succeed in the task that you're.
tasked with for lack of a turn of phrase. But while I haven't yet really gotten another job out of professional networking within my own circle, I think that if I had taken greater pains to build a professional circle, I might have had more success finding roles that were more meaningful to me earlier in my career than I have. The value of knowing a person well
and having a lot of people that know you well in a big network where that network could be leveraged to find you new jobs.
There's a good guy test, which is a gender term, but I'm going to use it anyway because that's the way it was explained to me when I was learning about networking from somebody in the military. When you're transferring offices or departments in the military and somebody says, don't worry about that person, they're a good guy, all of a sudden you've passed a test and your experience onboarding into that new group is going to be tremendously easier than
if you had not passed that they're a good person, they're a good guy test. So.
Having reputation as somebody people trust, knowing a lot of people and spreading the amount of people that trust you out over a greater network is vital to your personal satisfaction with your career, to your ability to switch careers, to switch jobs happily when you need to, because let's face it, things happen out of our control and sometimes layoffs happen. So if that happens, you wanna have some hedges against that.
Dee Davis (02:47)
I think the big misconception about networking is that a lot of people think well, I don't want to go spend time networking with people in my industry after work. Number one is taking up my personal time. And I'm out there, what, pushing for my employer and trying to get more work for my employer? My job's done when the day is over. Networking is not about your employer. It's about you.
You may be representing your employer and your employer is likely going to pay for the professional organization memberships that are required for networking. And while you're there, yes, you work for Joe Blow Contracting or whatever your company is, but you're making connections with people that work for other companies, other people in your industry. So guess what? Now, when you're gonna go say, hey, you know what?
I'm not happy in my role. I don't think I'm getting paid what I need to get paid. I'm in a toxic situation, whatever your thing is, or you get laid off or things are slowing down. You can see the writing on the wall. You have people that you can pick up the phone and call that know you and will say, yeah, I like that person. They're a good person. They'll put in a word for you. According to HubSpot in 2025. So this data is current.
85 % of jobs are through networking.
People get their jobs through networking, not through job posts, not through going onto social media or LinkedIn or wherever and finding ads for jobs. They are networking, finding out about positions available and getting the jobs that way. That's how I find work is through networking as a consultant.
I had lunch with two colleagues. I probably have five project leads, just through having lunch with two people that work in my industry that knows things that I don't know about what's going on. So it is an incredible way to build your resume and promote yourself out in your industry, whatever that industry is. It works in construction, it works in engineering, it works in almost any industry.
the old saying of it's not what you know, it's who you know is still true. I've had people say to me, no, no, you can't just go talk to people and get jobs. That's not how it works anymore. Yes, it is. The stats say that is exactly how it's working. Are you in the right places? Are you talking to the right people? Do you belong to the right professional organizations? That's really the question.
Brad Wyant (05:12)
And I want to make a comment there because I think when I heard this advice, it's not what you know, it's who you know. When I was a young person, it sounded to me like there was this nepotism, this favoritism that was gross and you didn't want to be associated with. like, well, forget that. I'm going to get my jobs the hard way. I'm just going to be really good at my career and I'm going to prove to people that they don't have to be my buddy to be somebody that is respected. That's not what this is about, is what I've come to learn.
It's about people understanding about you, that you're somebody who's trustworthy, that you're somebody who is going to be kind to work with, that you're going to be somebody who isn't a jerk. It's that good guy test. It's the more people that you can get to know and represent yourself beyond your skills as somebody that
would be a nice person to be around. It makes people more at ease to hire you. Skills on a resume, when you're in the position of hiring people, it's easy to read what somebody's done and be able to perceive if they might have a skillset or not. But there's also this human factor of we're all people. And that person hiring gets to decide, is this the kind of person I want to bring onto my team? Is this kind of person is going to fit in my culture? And the people who they have networked with.
They have an answer for that. The people who they have not networked with, who they don't know that well, they don't have an answer for that. And if you're the kind of person who just wants to be great at their job and go home every night and live the rest of your life, there's nothing wrong with that, but it's going to close you off from opportunities because people aren't going to be able to answer that question about whether they know you well enough to say that they would want to spend time with you. And that's going to bar you from being able to
make the money you want to go spend that time with family to do the things you want to do. It's a means to an end. can feel little dirty, but don't think of it that way is my advice.
Dee Davis (06:58)
Yeah, you're completely right. I know the words, are maybe not the best words, it's not what you know, but who you know. It is what you know. You still have to be good at what you do. You can be the nicest person in the whole wide world, but if you're terrible at your job, you might get the job, but you're not gonna keep the job. It's getting the job. You're more likely to get the job.
or get an interview at least if you know somebody else in that organization that can vouch for you, that can say, hey, I know this person. I've worked with this person before. They're a great person, whatever the situation is, I know them from such and such an organization. I network with people that I meet at professional organizations all the time. And they're not necessarily people that I'm
going and hanging out with outside of those events or anything like that. Some are, some aren't, but they're people that have gotten to know me well enough that they're like, yeah, she knows what she's doing. I would recommend her. That's absolutely the in you need. It is estimated that about 70 % of jobs aren't even published anywhere.
So for the folks that are out there just churning away, applying, applying, applying, applying, I read these articles on LinkedIn all the time. I talk to people about this all the time. They've put in 1200 resumes. They've gone to 15 interviews, if they can get an interview, they're working, they're behind off trying to get a job. That's one way to do it, but it's only one way. And it's probably the way that is going to be the most time consuming and
be the least successful. You're far more likely to find that unpublished job through your network. That's how it works for the majority of people that are out there when you're sitting back and you're going, I don't get it. How is everybody finding jobs and they're not unemployed for that long and I'm over here churning away? You might be going about it the wrong way.
Not that you shouldn't be applying for those things online, but it may not be the only thing you should be doing.
when I looked at that number and a 70 % of jobs are not advertised, I thought, God, that seems really high. I think it depends on the kind of job. Even if you just said that number's bupkis let's call it 50%. That's still a pretty staggering number. Even if it's 30%, I mean, that's a lot of jobs that are not being advertised. almost for every job ad you see, there's a net
a job ad that isn't published. There's a ghost ad out there somewhere that somebody hasn't written that a job is available.
LinkedIn published some stats recently that 70 % of jobs that were filled through LinkedIn were filled by people with LinkedIn connections at that company. Even somebody that you just meet on LinkedIn and interact with on LinkedIn can be networking. there's been people on LinkedIn that I've ended up having a call with.
I'm reading their articles, I'm reading their content, you we're interacting with each other's materials, and we form a networking business relationship of sorts. And those are helpful. They can absolutely be helpful, especially if they are working at a company that you would like to work for.
It really ends up boiling down to trust, whether the relationship with is with a vendor or supplier or a contractor or a client or even a potential coworker, we're human beings and we are wired to favor somebody we have an existing relationship with over somebody we've never met. We're just built that way. that's what we're saying is you have to take advantage of what is in the human nature.
Right now bots are in control of the hiring stuff that's going on out there. You submit that resume, it goes to a bot. The bot reviews your resume and decides whether you're in or you're out. So instead of trying to find another way, what we have a tendency to do is to try to find a way around the bot. Okay, now I have to redevelop my resume. I have to...
customize it for everyone. I have to write the cover letter. I have to put all these buzzwords in it. Yes, you can do all those things. And again, not saying that you shouldn't do some of those things, but you're still out there churning into the hundreds and the thousands of resumes for jobs that we no longer know. And these are jobs that are out there that are on the job board that you're applying for. We're not sure that those jobs are real anymore. That's another problem.
in every industry out there right now is that employers are openly admitting that they keep job postings up even when there's no job available. They're just gathering resumes. Well, that's not helping the job seeker. You don't want to be applying for ghost jobs. And there's so many scams out there these days. I'm reading that,
platforms like Glassdoor and Indeed a lot of those jobs aren't real anymore. They're scammers. And so it's really, really tough if you're out there on your own trying to figure it out. So there's another way. I recently had a phone call from a salesperson related to the construction industry. They were a architectural finishes salesperson.
And whatever's going on in their company, they are looking around and they called me for some advice. Like, Hey, do you have any connections? Do you know anybody that's hiring? I've been out there looking for six months and I can't find anything. And I said, okay, well, what professional organizations do you belong to? And they said, what? I said, what professional organizations? Like for me.
I belong to ISPE, I belong to ASHRAE, I belong to ACCE, I belong to PMI, NAWIC, I belong to probably seven or eight different professional organizations related to construction and education. And I have networks in every single one of those. That's a lot, I get it. But even if you only do one or two, I started out with just ASHRAE.
That's a professional network. And she said, well, I belong to this one through my employer. And I said, OK, well, do you attend any other events? No. This is a salesperson. In my experience at those kind of events, half of them are salespeople.
And so we have salespeople of a certain generation that are not even attending networking events to get more sales. So what are these generations doing that are not attending these networking events? What do you think's going on there, Brad?
Brad Wyant (13:27)
think a lot of it probably has to do with a difference in the way that these generations communicate. A lot of people my age and younger get anxious about the idea of having a phone call with somebody because they're used to communicating over text and email. And it could be that the preferred communication methods are shifting as cultures change. One of the things we talked about on our last podcast was that the younger generation
wants more flexibility, wants to be able to work different hours more regularly. So it could be that as opposed to the time commitment of joining a organization that requires a lot of in-person participation, that people are much more likely to go into chat rooms or be parts of groups on LinkedIn or text about things as opposed to networking in person. And I think that that might just be a transitory phase because
There's really no substitute for seeing a human being and watching their facial expressions. I think that if that goes out of. The way that we communicate with people that's going to be a huge change and it's susceptible to manipulation
by bots and by robots that are being used maliciously. So I don't know what the silver bullet is there. I just know that a lot of people my age and younger don't want to spend the time, don't want to belong to these organizations because it's like, well, I already go to work. I get where they're coming from. But I think that the worm is going to turn on that as people get older in their careers, more stakes are involved. Kids have college funds that they paying for or, you know, houses have mortgages that need paid.
I think you're going to see these younger generations start to commit in different ways maybe to these professional.
the idea being that I think people of my generation value their flexibility. We want to be outdoors more often. We don't want to be sitting at the same desk all day and
In-person networking requires flying to places, requires paying money that sometimes is out of pocket, requires being away from the rest of your life in ways that isn't always ideal. And my generation just so far is less willing to make that compromise and more interested in engaging in ways that fit their lives better. So maybe we'll see different forms of networking emerge that are more positive, but I think there's just no replacement for
in-person networking either, and it'll be interesting to see how my generation navigates those challenges.
Dee Davis (15:47)
Well, when you're unemployed, there's potential out of pocket expenses. In professional organizations, some in-person networking events are free. Sometimes there's a fee associated with them, as there's food and drink involved that they will cover for you. But if you're employed, your employer should be paying for those things. If you belong to a professional organization associated with your
industry. Most employers, I'm going say most because I've definitely heard of employers that won't or they'll only pay for certain ones, but you want to join another one. So the out of pocket thing can be a thing if you want to join an organization that your employer won't pay for or for your employer is very small. Sometimes they have a hard time footing those bills. Usually it's an annual fee associated with belonging to a professional organization.
if it's a dinner meeting, you might be paying 30, 40, 50 bucks to go to a dinner meeting. But again, hopefully you're not paying for those things out of your pocket and your employer is paying for those. I have never flown anywhere to attend a networking event, although you certainly could do that. I don't think any employer is going to pay for that unless you're going to go visit a customer, which that would be part of your job and your employer should be covering that.
But if you're unemployed and you're looking for work. Renewing memberships in these organizations attending events can certainly be out of pocket when I'm thin on work. How many of these events I attend drops to some extent and a more selective as to what events I'm attending from from the out of pocket discussion. I don't have an employer to pay for my stuff. I am the employer so.
I have to pay every time I go to one of these events unless it's a membership included event. It's the time that I'm imagining that folks are saying, look, I don't want to do this. I just want to go to my job. I want to go home. I don't want to associate with anybody outside of working hours. I just want to collect my check.
and I think the idea is, look, nobody's paying me to do this. So I'm not going to do it, but really you're hurting yourself in the long run. You've successfully thumbed your nose at your employer and said, ha ha, you're not going to get me to do this and not pay me for it. But really you're hurting yourself at the end of the day, because when you want to leave that employer and go somewhere else, you're not going to know anyone in your industry.
So it's going to be harder, it's going to take longer to get that next job, to get that next higher level job as you're moving up in your career. And let's face it, whatever you're doing right now in your job is probably not what you're going to be doing in three years, five years, 10 years. You're going to have elevated levels of responsibility. You're going to get promotions. Maybe you're changing companies to get those promotions. Maybe it's the same company.
your responsibilities are going to change and you're going to need to know who these people are that you need to deal with, whether you're hiring contractors, you're dealing with contracts, vendors, whatever it is that you're doing, you're going to need to know who these people are to be effective at your job. And if all you're doing is showing up and punching a clock every day and not networking anywhere, you're not going to know any of these people.
Brad Wyant (18:55)
And networking doesn't have to suck. think a lot of us hear networking and think that is this dirty word where you just have to be out there selling yourself like a vacuum door to door salesperson. Look at how great I am. And that's no one wants to be that guy. No one likes that person. So don't be that person. It's about reputation is about trust. It's about putting yourself in a position to be known and to know others and be genuine. Have a little bit of time with that person.
One of the things from the MBA that some people resonate with if they've been through the MBA recruiting process, there's this phenomenon known as the circle of death, where four or five recruiters will show up to some on-campus event, and then the 50 students that show up to that event will swarm and create little pockets where they're ganging up on each of those recruiters, 10 people talking to the same one recruiter, each of them trying to
prove by asking some pithy question that they are the right person to hire for the job. And of course, I mean, that's what's going on. These people are coming to campus to find their talent and all these people want that job because pays ton of money. And so there's this very Lord of the flies gross thing that happens. And at those events, I would always just try to.
Be a genuine person and ask questions that I would actually want to know the answer to as opposed to trying to ask a question that makes me look good. One of the jobs I did end up getting was with a consulting firm called Alvarez and Marsal and I've recruited with them my first year of the MBA program. Got to know some people through it. Didn't get the job. That's OK. Wasn't probably for me anyway. but you gotta put a lot of lines in the water if you want to catch fish with networking, especially in this world and the next year.
I just went to see people and said, hey, how are your kids? How's that move? What's life like in Chicago these days? How are you? And as opposed to getting the job, I now could count those people among my network if I ever had to ask them a question about their expertise, because they remembered that I just cared about them. I cared about the people they were and treated them with respect.
That kind of interaction, as opposed to the look at me, ask this pithy question interaction, is the kind of interaction people want to have. People want to be seen as people. So don't make networking suck. Don't approach it like this thing where you have to constantly be telling people how great you are. Have genuine interactions, and I think they'll come around in ways that you might not expect.
Dee Davis (21:20)
I absolutely hate trying to sell myself. I'm not a salesperson. I never have been. I don't even want to be. You sell yourself by just being yourself. I go to these events and I just talk to people and we just have conversations mostly not about work, by the way. We just talk about life and kids and their dog and
what they did last weekend and what's the vacation they're taking. it's just conversation. That's how you get to know somebody and you get to know a little bit about them. I've actually even developed relationships with their kids. mean, some of these people I've known so long that their kids have grown up, graduated from college and they're in the same industry. And now I'm working with their kids and I'm hanging out with their kids. It's fun.
I don't go into these events with my resume in hand and, talking to people and trying to get a job or trying to, land my next project or tell everybody how great I am. I don't do that at all. I just talk to people. I'll walk up to perfect strangers. this is the anxiety producing part, I think, for people. When you walk into a room full of people that you don't know, everyone.
has some level of anxiety, everyone. And I used to dread walking into a room full of people that I didn't know. And I finally just decided that if it's a room full of people I don't know, that's my fault. It's my responsibility to make sure that I meet at least a few of those people.
I went to a conference last year where I literally didn't know a single person. There were hundreds of people there. I didn't know one person. And I just walked in and I looked around and I said, I don't know anybody at that table over there. So I'm going to go sit down over there. I'm going to introduce myself to every person at that table and I'm just going to talk to them and ask them some questions. Hi, what's your name? Where do you work? What do you do there?
Where do you live? what's your favorite place to go on vacation? I mean, you just start talking to people at the people level and it's far less intimidating than you think it's gonna be. is that person very interesting? Are they very fun to talk to? Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. If they aren't, you talk to them for a few minutes and you move on and you go to the next table full of people that you don't know or group of people clustering together that you don't know. It's way more fun.
to go to events when you know at least some people, especially when you get to catch up with people that you haven't seen in a long time and find out what they're up to. And that's your network. Those are your people. Hey, what have you been up to? I haven't seen you in like a year. What's happening? Where have you been? What have you been working on? you changed jobs. Wow, where are you now? I mean, it's just chitter chatter. That's all you're doing.
I think it's far less intimidating in reality than people make it up to be in their heads.
Brad Wyant (24:04)
I can hear people from my generation quoting something that was a big popular phrase for long time, no new friends. That was like a popular saying among my generation. And I think that I get where people are coming from about that. There's this social anxiety about putting yourself out there to know a whole other person. But if you're going to live a life where you have no new friends, that's actually pretty boring when you think about it. That's actually a pretty limited life. Don't don't live that life is my place politely.
Dee Davis (24:30)
I've never heard that term by the way I've never heard that saying
Brad Wyant (24:33)
That's why I brought it up. was like, yeah, no way she's heard this, but this is such a millennial thing.
Dee Davis (24:38)
some of my best friends are people who just love to claim that they don't like other people. It's too people-y out there. I don't want to make any new friends. I don't want to be around people. I don't want to socialize. The funny thing is, is when you get these people out, they are the most social people. They won't go by themselves. They'll only go if.
with other people that they know, because that feels a little bit more secure because they have some social anxiety. OK, I get that. I remember going to my husband's 25th class reunion a number of years ago, or maybe it was the 30th, I don't know, something, class reunion, which, by the way, is the worst, going to somebody else's class reunion. And we're about to go to another one this year. like, oh, no. Talk about not knowing anyone.
The last one we went to quite a few years ago, 15, 20 years ago, I had not figured this out yet. And I just thought, Lord, I am going to a room full of filled with hundreds of people I've never met. And I will probably never see again, this is not fun for me. But I went and I did not have a good time and I am bound and determined this time I'm going to go and I'm just going to act like it's a networking event.
I'm just going to go start introducing myself to every random stranger and see if I can find some interesting people to talk to. It's kind of a game.
So you can also do online networking. If that's a more comfortable place to start, start there. Get onto LinkedIn, start developing your network within LinkedIn of people that are in your industry, maybe in similar roles at different companies than you are. especially if there are people that are actively posting and writing and things like that, start reading what they're writing, start commenting, start interacting.
And you might be surprised that you find some friends there and they can help you out when you need it.
I just want to focus a little bit more on LinkedIn. So when your name is brought up in any context, I have this happen to me all the time. I got several phone calls from people that I know at a distance in the industry and with some project opportunities last week. And when your name is brought up by somebody for whatever reason, the first thing that happens is your LinkedIn profile gets pinged.
People start looking up your LinkedIn profile to figure out who you are. So if you do not have a good LinkedIn profile, I highly recommend that you focus on that. What does your LinkedIn profile say about you? If you're one of those people who has a LinkedIn profile and has never posted a single thing, has never commented on a single post, has never done anything,
that speaks about you professionally. It says you're not interested in engaging with anyone or anything is what people take from that. If that's not a message you wanna send, particularly if you're looking for work. People can very quickly, if they know how to do it, look at everything you've posted, your responses to posts and tell how active your profile is. So it's just something to keep in mind.
LinkedIn, so many other social media profiles have started getting rather political and sometimes contentious. Just keep that in mind. People can see what you've commented on and what kind of conversations you've engaged in. But having a complete and up-to-date profile is important wherever you're working.
Make sure that is current. I know people on LinkedIn who are very, very high level professionals, very good at what they do. I know for a fact that they don't work at those places that they have in there. They haven't worked there in 10 years.
And that's what they're putting out there. And everybody that knows them knows it's wrong. So what's going to happen with that person for whatever reason now has to go out and find a job.
it's not that hard to go in there and update your profile. ⁓
Brad Wyant (28:28)
It's
like the professional equivalent of having your old company's business cards and handing those out and being like, yeah, I know don't work here anymore, but this is.
Dee Davis (28:35)
Yeah!
Brad Wyant (28:35)
Bare minimum is probably a good threshold. Don't be like wrong on LinkedIn, but being social on LinkedIn is probably a minimum amount of social. There are people who over post on LinkedIn and those, and we, my generation especially knows the people who over post on social media, who over chronolog their life through their Instagram story. They always have 20 pictures a day for their Instagram story. Don't necessarily be that person either. That's a little bit too far, but.
Don't be the person that is like a ghost, that nobody knows what they're doing at any given time.
Dee Davis (29:06)
Yeah, or have zero LinkedIn profile. I've had that happen where I've gone to look somebody up on LinkedIn that I'm working with on a project. I'm like, I've never worked with this person before. I want to learn a little bit about them so that maybe I can interact with them a little bit easier if I learn a little bit about them and nothing. Their name does not come up anywhere. No zero LinkedIn profile. Well, that's not helping me.
Not everybody wants to do all that stuff. I get it. It's just, it's an option. It's a good option.
Make sure that your email is up to date on there. Make sure that you don't have old data or zero activity if you are going to have a profile. For a customer or a potential employer trying to get to know you, this is more than likely how they're going to do it. This is going to be their first stop. Do you have a LinkedIn profile? If so, let's just make sure that it's accurate and it's up to date. Even if you choose not to make any unique
posts. You can just go in and like other people's posts In-person networking. I highly recommend professional organizations in whatever industry you're in. They have social and fun events, cocktail hours, top golf events, golf tournaments if that's your jam, educational events, trade shows.
There are a million opportunities out there every year to go to these kinds of events. And like I said, a lot of them are free if cost is a concern for you. I listed off a whole slew of organizations that I belong to and don't think for a minute that I'm out there attending all their events. Nobody's got time for that.
I try to attend two or three events for each organization, if possible, each year, and maintain those connections with those people. Because you just never know where your next connection will help you, especially with getting a job. or putting in a good word for you.
According to a study conducted by Forbes, in-person networking is still the best way to maintain relationships and build new ones, including stronger and more meaningful business relationships, communication and body language, which you alluded to earlier with the facial expressions and the body language, improved bonding and trust, and complex strategic thinking.
You can have a discussion with somebody more easily in person. There's an instant bond that is created when somebody's in the same room with you. That doesn't necessarily occur or will take longer to occur virtually.
So think about it like this. How included do you feel when you're remote working? Don't get me wrong. I love remote working. I've work from home all the time. I absolutely love it. But one of the things that I've noticed about remote working is that you miss out on all the day-to-day communication of whatever's going on on your, for me, it's a project site. For you, it might be an office. All that information in your trailers, in your office, whatever,
You miss 95 % of the churn. OK, do you need all of that churn? No, you definitely don't. But a lot of it is you'll be missing big pieces of information that might be really critical to you seeing the writing on the wall when something's going wrong at work. You don't want any unpleasant surprises. And when you're not there for people to communicate with easily, like I can see you,
You're right there, your desk is right across from me, or I saw you in the lunchroom or whatever. You lose all of that when you are not in person somewhere. And it can cost you big, not just with internal networking or external networking in your organization, but in knowing what's happening so that you can be prepared for whatever's coming next.
Brad Wyant (32:41)
think a great example of that could be the time that I was working on a project where we had just been awarded the next phase of work by the client based on our prior performance, based on our bid, and we were planning to mobilize that phase. we were committing funds, committing people to this project. And then for lack of a not millennial term, the vibes started to falter on the project. There was a bunch of things that happened. There were new managers coming in from the client side.
And things felt a lot more anxious around the job site. And then a few weeks later, we found out that they had pulled that next phase of work and they were putting it back out to the street. And that was not a shocking turn of events to me because I'd been on the site every day because I'd seen the interactions between the client's organization, our organization, and thought that something like that might happen. And if I'd been in a position where that
would have made or broken my career as far as me needing to start networking to find another job, as far as me needing to think about another place to live. Having that information about what was going on socially on the job site, how people's emotions were, would have been a very valuable thing. Luckily, things worked out and I went to business school. But just being aware of emotions that don't carry across a camera and a screen is something that
you want to really be aware of and working part-time in the office at least is a big way that you can achieve that kind of goal.
Dee Davis (34:06)
People are far more likely to tell you things in person than they are to go pick up the phone when you're working remotely and go, I got to call Brad and tell him that. They're just people are just not going to do it. If the people that are on site and that happens when you try to manage remote work in the construction industry, I've managed a number of jobs remotely. It's not ideal.
If you can manage to be on site, it's far better. Your client will like you more if they can see your face because that's how you build trust. But you, just don't know everything that's going on. So people are not picking up the phone every five minutes to tell you what's going on on site. And the same is going to happen in any environment. People that are there. It's not their job to pick up the phone and call you every five minutes to tell you what's going on. So you're missing out on an awful lot.
and when you are on the phone or in virtual meetings with people and you're thinking, well, I communicate with these people all day. I'm in meetings all day. I talk to them all the time, but those are task oriented interactions. You're there for a specific purpose and then you hang up you may have a minute or two to kind of BS
how was your weekend or whatever at the beginning of a meeting as people are logging on. But once people are on, first of all, you've got an audience, so you're not going to talk about anything one-on-one or confidential, right? And then, it's down to business and you just get it done. You're not doing that, hey, let's go grab lunch kind of bonding.
So networking in person, I think, is a hey, how's your weekend with some business thrown in? Now there's a little bit of business talk, of course. You're going to talk about who's got whatever project and who's made whatever job change and things like that. But it's mostly just talking to people about random people things. It's not the high pressure situation that I think we make it out to be.
The overall message is that networking is an investment that you are making in you and in your career, not your employer. And attending events isn't enough. You do have to talk to strangers. You can't just go talk to all the people you already know. You have to talk to strangers, but they're not going to be strangers for long. Some of the greatest relationships that I have, I've developed through networking with people in my industry. I found some really awesome people.
and supportive people that will say nice things about you in rooms that you're in and rooms that you're not in. And that is the goal.
Brad Wyant (36:32)
Trust and reputation, hard to overestimate the value of those things.
Dee Davis (36:36)
Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time.
