This is the first article in my Student Series, a collection of articles intended to help students and recent graduates navigate the tech jobs ecosystem. As someone who has connected extensively with students, I thought it would be useful to record my thoughts here. In the first post, I’m going to discuss networking. Since this article is targeted at students, I’ll use the informal “you” to refer to students generally. As a mid-career software developer – still young enough to vividly remember school and the hustle for those first few jobs, but old enough to have made a bunch of mistakes – I’m hopeful I can offer some perspective that students would find useful.

This article is looking at cold-call networking, but it can be applied to connections you’ve met elsewhere (like at a conference or event). Cold calls are hard (there are venues for it, like Ten Thousand Coffees). If you’re looking to nurture a casual connection (from an event or conference, for example), then I think this advice is also helpful.

Why Networking?

A lot of students hear that they should network: that is, they should reach out to professionals to build a professional network. This advice isn’t altogether bad, but I find many students haven’t really considered why they would network, and it can lead to ineffective meetings.

You network so that you can leverage the people in your network later. As opportunistic as this sounds, we’re building a network so that we can use it to our benefit. With this goal in mind, you should consider what your immediate goals are. As a student:

• You want a job. It’s as simple as that. You don’t have a job now, and are looking to line something up for your next internship. Or you have a job, but you want a better one next time.
• You want advice. Maybe you’re unsure whether you want to pursue a job in big tech, or you’re intimidated by the prospects of doing a technical interview. Perhaps you’re unsure whether you even want to continue studying computer science. You want some advice for your resume. A bit of advice can go a long way.
• You’re looking for some insider information. You’re trying to find out what interview questions are asked, or what the criteria might be for hiring. (If this is what you’re trying to do, I’d advise against it: most professionals will pick up on this, and trying to mine for too much nonpublic information is not a good look. A good mentoring relationship will serve you better).

Let’s consider why a professional would want to network with you:

• They want to hire you, some day. It can pay dividends to know good people. Students become junior engineers who eventually become seniors. Even if you can’t hire a student – perhaps because that’s not your job – you might be able to refer them some day (and cash out a referral bonus).
• They’re building their professional network, too. It’s not a one-way street. You would be surprised how useful casual connections can come in handy. A lot of high-achieving students can advance, relatively quickly, to senior positions and become a resource for the people they might have sought advice from a few years ago.
• They’re generally interested in student development. This is the altruistic perspective. Engineers remember what it was like to be a student. They want to help.

It’s Hard to get a Job

If your goal of networking with people is to get a job, be prepared for an uphill battle. Here, I’ll describe why this is generally not a useful outcome to look for with your networking.

I Can’t Hire You

Most engineers aren’t hiring managers. They will know hiring managers, but those hiring managers may not have headcount to grow their team. And even if they do, they likely don’t know you well enough to submit an informed referral.

To be abundantly clear: I can’t hire you. I can’t even refer you (my employer does not accept referrals for internships). I can’t hand your resume to a hiring manager or put in a good word. I’m a terrible person to talk to if you want a job.

People Need to See More

I rarely leave a 30 minute coffee chat with a student thinking that I should hire them (it can happen, but it’s not the norm). It’s difficult to convey your expertise in an introductory phone call. And if you try to do that, I expect you’ll come off as very self-centred. A job comes from the culmination of working with someone on multiple occasions, and being impressed at every turn.

Referrals Come From Informed Opinions

Lastly, a referral comes from an informed opinion about someone. I need to know:

• Your general intelligence: Are you a smart person?
• Your work ethic: Are you responsible and can self-manage your time?
• Your professionalism: Would you say something in an interview or get yourself into a situation that might look bad on me?

With this in mind, almost all casual networking does not result in a referral.

So why do networking?

Use Networking to get Advice

In a first phone call with someone who could help you, you want to introduce yourself and explain where you’ve come from.

It can be useful to be vulnerable here, especially if you’re talking to someone who you feel comfortable with. Maybe you’ve never talked to someone who works for big tech. Maybe you’ve never met a professional software engineer. It’s actually OK to say this. Depending on the conversation, you might want to be even more vulnerable: maybe you didn’t grow up with a lot of money, or you’re the first in your family to go to university.

This honesty will fuel a conversation that can actually help you. The engineers you talk to will be able to sympathize with your position. And importantly, they can actually give advice tailed to your situation. If you present that everything is OK (because you’re concerned with leaving a good impression – and hoping to land a job), then you’re unlikely to get advice to help with your actual problems. It’s like going to a psychologist and hiding your depression.

Use You Student Status

Most engineers I talk to would respond to a short question on LinkedIn, because they remember what it was like to be a student and want to help. This is doubly true if you share some connection with them: e.g. you went to the same school or program, or they work at a company that you’ve highlighted as a dream place you want to work (and it actually, believably, is).

Open with one or two questions. If you send a long list of questions, you’re much less likely to get a response. Even the most helpful connections may ignore a list of questions that stretches too long (or not have the time to respond in the moment, then forget about it).

Send Small Successes (And Ask For Help)

Maintain your most important connections by letting them know when you’ve had some success. Tell them about your co-op jobs, especially if you can bring it back to a conversation you had (if they advised you on moving from a testing position to a software development position, let them know when you’ve made this transition, for example).

Continue to ask for advice on a regular cadence. How often can depend on the relationship you have with them. If they seem like they’re excited to help you, ask more regularly. It’s also kind of fun to hear from someone after one or two years, especially if there’s a substantial update.

Look for Opportunities to Deepen Connections

Whenever I travel, I try to meet up with the people that I have infrequent connections with. This is normally people that I’ve met at conferences or co-workers who have moved on to other companies. As a student, you can do something similar.

If you know your mentor attends a tech meetup, see if you can get face time by attending. Maybe you know people you’ve connected with are attending a specific conference or event. A short in-person meeting at one of these can turn you from an anonymous student to a real person. It can accelerate your connection with them. (And these events are likely to lead to other connections, too).

… Then Go for the Kill

I mentioned that you don’t necessarily use networking to get a job. That’s true, at least at the beginning. Ideally though, you’ve made some meaningful connection over the years. Once you have, you’re more able to ask for a specific referral.

This is most useful when someone brings a job posting directly to someone, and there has been a meaningful connection in the past that leads to an informed opinion. This generally comes from knowledge of the candidates' work – like some projects you’ve shared, or seeing them code during a mock interview.

You may only get one shot. Most connections won’t hold your hand for a few months of job postings.

Mistakes Students Make

It might be useful to enumerate mistakes that students make here, to point out obvious error paths.

They Know Everything

You’re smart – but it’s likely you don’t know everything. The more you learn about software engineering, the more you realize that you know about a small subset of a massive field. To put it into perspective, most senior engineers would not consider themselves language experts. The designers of the C++ programming language routinely cite that they only know a small fraction of it. If the people who designed it don’t know all of it, how do you? Even if you became a world-class expert in something like C++ systems programming, you might have no expertise at all in web development. It’s a different field, and humility serves you well.

I still recall a student that I interviewed for a co-op position. They opened by telling me that they already were an expert, and were looking to explain what they could offer for me. This is a good sentiment, but it doesn’t lend itself towards teachability (which is critical for interns).

They Don’t Leave a Message

I get a lot of LinkedIn connection requests. Not all of them leave a message. I’m much more likely to accept a connection if you send a short message. Particularly if we don’t have any mutuals, or I don’t know where you came from.

Conclusion and Reflections

My own experience – pre-LinkedIn – was that the majority of my early career jobs came from my connections. LinkedIn existed, but it wasn’t really a big thing. However, I’ll admit that I never landed one of my big career “bumps” through a referral or a connection. My networking provided me with invaluable advice and the confidence to pursue greater things, but my own trepidation at growing my network prevented me from reaching out to a software engineer at a dream company. I’m also not sure how much it would have helped: without some guidance on how to make the connection last, I feel like it would have been likely to fizzle out.

Ultimately, be yourself. In the job search, you’re often faking it until you make it. That might work for some people, but it’s better to leverage your student status to get some advice from people who have been in your shoes. Be authentic, be honest, and see where it takes you. You may find that the advice is more valuable than the job you might get.