Keys to Effective Networking

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>> Jerome Hardaway: Add value consistently, right? That is something that people do not understand about networking. I am trying to always add value to the people I work with and I want to network with. I want, when I have a W, it's all of our wins, right? When you have a W, it's all of our W.

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I'm celebrating your win. I make sure I'm around people where the wins are ethical and I have no problem celebrating those Ws, right? And I want the exact same thing for me. So that's where you wanna add value. I'm the biggest cheerleader, Frontend Masters did something cool, I'm like, yes.

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I'm like, even if they don't share my articles or my workshops, I'm sitting there sharing other people's stuff. I'm nagging, I nagged Mark on Cody Lindley's Frontend Handbook for two years before they dropped a new one cuz I wanted one so bad cuz I loved that resource, right?

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Not, I want to take over that, no, I want that resource. Cuz that's how good it is, I've never met Cody Lindley, I couldn't pick him out of a lineup, but I love that resource, and I'm like, no, I want more of that. My troops want that, I want that, we need that out here in these streets.

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They just dropped it about a month ago, read it front or back I love playbooks I hope they do more of them. I love the playbook style but you wanna add value like yes, this relationship I'm sharing about this relationship all the time, right, you but that's what you wanna do.

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You wanna make it reciprocal. You don't want to edit to flow one direction. Whereas a lot of people, that's how they want, they expect networking and mentorship to do, is to flow just towards them. But instead it's like the yin-yang symbol, it's circular. It's you're always flowing into each other, flowing and pouring.

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So add your value consistently. Product feedback loop for junior developers. Junior developers, for every time you send a resume, you should be building three features or doing three commits, right? Four commits. I see too many engineers, especially right now, we're seeing the Twitterfation of LinkedIn, as I like to call it, where the juniors are coming on LinkedIn, trying to be loud and snarky for attention, and it's like all you're doing is annoying the old people on LinkedIn.

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Do something to show value. Ask us about a product that you're building or project and ask us where you're feedback. It's all you're gonna do is you're gonna get muted or disconnected from on LinkedIn. There's no need to be, you don't need to bring the Twitter snarkiness over LinkedIn and keep the Twitter snarkiness over there, right that's why there's a separation of concerns.

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We don't want that over here where old in our rocking chair, get off our lawn unless you're doing value right like that. That's where we're at, right? I have two troops that, well, two prospective troops. And I'm like, I want to counsel them as we used to say in the military.

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I wanna counsel them, I'm like, please stop being snarky on LinkedIn. All you're doing is having the people that think about giving you jobs, not want to give you jobs, just making all the people not wanna talk to you. Please stop that. Add value. Please do that. So you're a junior, that's what you should be focused on.

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Seniors, mid to seniors, leverage those existing connections. I cannot hesitate today. Just pick one person. Don't DM them the minute you see them like of course, just go, you pick the person, tomorrow's a good day. If you don't do it tomorrow, wait till Monday. Don't DM people on Friday like a monster on LinkedIn, right?

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That's the only thing worse than that is emailing someone at work about something on a Friday, right before 4.30PM. Don't do that, wait till Monday, DM the person, say you wanna catch up, see if they have any time. Do that. But don't start going through your Rolodex and network and start building relationships.

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I'm also on LinkedIn. Hit me up on LinkedIn if you have a chance. Don't hesitate to connect with me, I love talking to a Frontend Masters troops all over the globe. I've done it from India, China, Taiwan, anywhere that there's a Frontend masters person, I talk to them.

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And I love doing one-on-ones with you all. You all are like my favorite people cuz I have ten of all of the coursework I've seen. I like the Frontend Masters group because they tend to be a lot more serious when it comes to, I want you to tell me the things that I need to do right now that I can be like actionable.

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And I like that. I like people that want what are the actionable things that I can do today? So like, I like talking that to that crew. So networking is more than just connections, trust and credibility. We've talked about how do you build trust? You build trust by executing on what people tell you to do, right?

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That's the simplest way of build trust. My wife, she's gonna trust me only when I'm on my video game, and my wife asked me to take out the trash. She's gonna trust me to take out the trash and I'll say okay, I'll take out the trash while I'm playing cuz I've taken out the trash before.

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Now, whenever I'm playing a video game, I'm never taking out the trash when she sees me on my Xbox, she's not gonna trust me and she's going to be like, uh-uh, no, I'm gonna get on your nerves to get off those sticks and take out the trash, right?

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That's how the game is played. But if she knows that, I'm like, all right, so I'm gonna get done with this match don't take it, I'm gonna beat this dude really fast and then I'm gonna go here and then I'm gonna take out a trash. Okay, and I do that?

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There you go, trust establish, all right? I made that small deposit into the trust safety bank. Listen like they say, it's like a bank. You can do one, you have a small deposit, you mess up, you're taken out of the bank lending you always end up taking more out the bank.

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And so I remember doing a small deposit of trust with people that you're trying to build connections with, that's how you do it. Credibility, focus on building real work, showcasing people how they that you care publicly about things are doing, that's how you build credibility, right? It's a secret sauce.

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Someone pours into you, then you execute on them, you let people know, hey, this person taught me, told me how to do this. It showed a better result, I wanna appreciate it, that builds your trust, that builds your credibility. So consistently showcase work. Feedback, implement on that feedback, keeping your word, and you'll build, over time, a very strong professional reputation that's gonna follow you, and something you'll be able to lean on when you need to.

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Like I said, focus on adding value and meaningful connections. Like I said, you are not looking for 10,000, you're looking for 100 people that whatever mission you're gonna go on in life, they're gonna support.