03-27-2026THE NEW RULES OF WORK

3 ways to take the ‘work’ out of networking

Make it easy for contacts to help.

[Source Image: Freepik]

You’ve spent years building a robust professional network. You’ve cultivated relationships with peers, mentors, and industry leaders. So when you signal that you’re exploring new opportunities, you expect your network to perform. Yet too often, promising conversations dissolve into silence. Warm introductions never materialize. Emails go unanswered.

This isn’t a reflection of your professional standing. It’s a design problem: you’re making it too hard for people to help you. The fix is straightforward. Make it easy. Here are three ways to do so.

Ask To Write to Their Contact Directly

When you reach out to a contact seeking an introduction to a decision-maker, a common response goes something like this: “Absolutely — send me your résumé and I’ll forward it to see if there’s interest.”

It sounds helpful, but rarely is.

The fundamental problem: you’ve just handed over control of your own job search to someone with a dozen other priorities. Even the most well-intentioned contact may not follow through—because the timing isn’t right for their colleague (the chances they need your résumé at any given moment are small), because it slipped off their radar, or because the introduction they made on your behalf didn’t do you justice.

The solution is to reclaim the driver’s seat. When a contact offers to pass your résumé along, respond with something like:

“I really appreciate it. To save you time, could I reach out to your colleague directly and simply mention that I was referred by you? I’m also looking to build a relationship for opportunities now or down the road, so I would rather not forward a resume that implies I need a job quickly. Would this work?”

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