I accidentally networked my way into doing work that I love in a contracting capacity. How did I do it? I don’t have a simple answer for you. But as ever, I have some thoughts :)
This wouldn’t be a blog if I cut right to it, so what have I got for you?
- Who am I to speak on this?
- My core networking principles:
- One last takeaway: Social currency is a very real thing.
To be sure that you don’t miss the point, the point of all this ultimately is:
People like working with people they like.
You’re probably someone that people like too, so I’m sharing the ways I built my network of professional friends.
So what’s my deal?
I’m not a career coach or a networking expert – honestly, I hate the concept of ‘networking’ as we learn about it in college or see online. I don’t have a magic formula that will land you the perfect mentor or your dream job either. (If you have that, please let me know!)
I’m probably more like you – a human with a career, just doing my best. What makes me a little unique, though, is that I’m a contractor/freelancer/consultant, and that happened completely on accident.
In late 2021, I decided to quit my job managing a support team to pursue writing in tech full-time. My plan was simple: complete my UX Writing certification and start applying for full-time roles ASAP. Before I’d even left my job or started my certification, I had two contract roles lined up. On the surface, all I’d done was tell the right people I was leaving my role for a slightly uncertain future.
What really happened? I like to say that I’m lucky, which is partly very true, but no one stumbles into this many opportunities.
I created a network of good people who like working with me. I never intentionally ‘networked’ with anyone – they were necessary working relationships with people I respected and enjoyed. I’d worked hard over a long period of time, took care of my relationships, and put myself out there when I didn’t always feel like it.
Hindsight made something abundantly clear to me: People like working with people they like.
Maring’s core networking principles
Before I jump in, a quick note. My experience is my experience, and these ‘principles’ are, at their core, actions I’ve identified from my past that likely led to positive relationships and opportunities. A lot of this is common sense, and most of my advice can be summarized simply as ‘do your best and be nice to people.’
With that in mind, I’m also a word person! I’ve broken down the principles below, and you can jump to more detail about any one of them by selecting it.
- Be good at your job (and care about it)
- ALWAYS be friendly over email
- Embrace your social butterfly (even if she’s a bit small)
- Never tell yourself no
- Be your authentic self
Be good at your job and care about it
You know when someone is good at their job and when they’re not. Who would you rather build a relationship with? The good one, yes.
None of my other advice works if you are crap at your job.
You can be the kindest, most fun person in the room, but no one will want to maintain a professional relationship if you miss deadlines, don’t communicate proactively, or create more work for other people.
Whether you’re in a new role with new people or you’ve been around for a while, focus on being good at your job first and foremost. Ask good questions, be kind and friendly, but don’t try to turn a professional relationship into an actual friendship if you tend to fumble.
Not sure if you’re there yet? Well… most people usually know, so that may be a sign that you need to keep working at your role before anything else. There’s a confidence and natural camaraderie that comes with excelling at what you do.
If you’re really unsure or feeling self-conscious, this might be a good question for your boss, a colleague, or the career gurus. Ask around or give it a Google!
ALWAYS be friendly in emails
Email is still the prevailing form of workplace communication – if you’re not sending or receiving several a day… well, I’d like that job.
Basically, putting some thought into how someone perceives your emails is an easy way to always be nice. For most of us going through the email grind, it can be nice when someone is being nice!
You might be thinking, ‘But Maring. You know I’m sending and receiving so many emails a day. I don’t have time to think so much about being nice!’
To that I say, fair point! Good thing I’ve got you covered with my favorite email strategy: The Exclamation Point Sandwich.
I like to think that The Exclamation Point Sandwich is to email as smiling is to the in-person experience of seeing someone around at the office. Both lay a great foundation for real conversations, grabbing lunch one day, and forming a real friendship.
For now, here’s a fast-and-dirty breakdown for you:
This can be an especially handy tactic if you work in support! Based on certain processes, I was often emailing other teams internally from a generic ‘support@org.com’ email ID. Even with my name in the email, it was hard to stand out. Embracing casual communication and showing that I cared went a long way in setting me apart from the rest of my team. People wanted to know who was being a little more personable, and I later found that they were able to associate my good work with my name more easily than others.
So how do you go from an email format to a connection with someone?
In my experience, you pay attention to the other person’s responses. If they get friendlier in their emails or your DMs get more casual and conversational, you’re in!
You should always proceed with caution, but if someone meets your energy, you can slowly take it to the next level. Routine, 1-1 email exchanges are the perfect place to build those relationships.
Start small and transition the formal email vibes into writing how you speak. Next, maybe throw something unrelated to work at the bottom of the email – try a compliment, a joke, ask about their weekend or their kid, whatever. Making your communication about more than work can be a nice, friendly little break from the humdrum of the day.
Very Important Reminder: Read the room!
Not every email is appropriate for trying to make a friend. If there is urgency or high visibility, keep it professional and on topic!
And if you’re bad at your job, DO NOT PASS GO. Pam doesn’t want you asking about her weekend when you still haven’t sent her a draft that you promised would arrive yesterday.
Embrace your social butterfly
This can be a tough one, especially if you identify as an introvert. Personally, I see myself as an ‘extroverted-introvert.’ I enjoy other people, I like being social, but it can be an absolute drain, especially after a full day of work (and people).
That said, it’s so valuable to show your face outside of work when you can swing it. You never know who will be there and what opportunities can present themselves, especially if it’s early in your career.
I’ve always been pretty active in work social scenes. I never went to every event, but I was a reliable friendly face when folks went out. Here are a few examples of relationships (and opportunities) that came out of going out:
We met grabbing a drink after a recruiting event. Both our teams were hiring, we’d spent a few hours talking to prospects, and bonded over beer pong on a Thursday alongside the recruiter. Aside from gaining an incredible friendship, she had been at the company for years AND was on another team. The benefits at work were truly endless.
I developed a more personal relationship with an attorney who I’d always enjoyed around the office. Working within legal tech, it was so valuable to feel comfortable pinging her with quick but dicey questions from customers – I could still help them without crossing a line. Even better though, our relationship led to a trip to Ethiopia AND the opportunity to help develop a new app.
We met at a happy hour when he was newer to the company. We had some great conversations about our backgrounds and where we wanted to take our careers. He was also very interested in customer experiences (we didn’t have a UX research team). Not only did he loop me into other projects with the product team, but he tapped me to help work on our company’s very bad, very old FAQs.
That FAQ project showed me my passion for support content, which led me to my career today!
That friendship also led to a great relationship with his boss. My face-time with their team eventually led his boss to trust me as a resource on some of our UX content. Sometimes he’d get a little short about product issues with my team too, and a timely delivery of baked goods always kept our relationship a little sweeter! (Remember, the fastest way to somsone’s heart is through their stomach!)
We met working on a pretty complicated customer outreach project. We sort of spoke each other’s language, the project was smooth, and we later realized (at a happy hour) that we were basically neighbors. He eventually became a prominent member on our product team, and a very trustworthy cat/plant sitter. As we both worked our way up the company, it was super handy to have such an easy time communicating if we ever had a quick question about something.
I never really interacted with the sales team unless there was an outing. We got into our careers one day, and this guy gave me a totally new perspective on his work. (It’s easy to be salty about sales and marketing folks when your company is a little dysfunctional about customer retention.)
I was also able to teach him more about my team, and he was comfortable asking me questions. I don’t think it was an accident that we always had the smoothest experience onboarding the clients he brought on.
Truly, I could go on. It was great putting faces to names in all of my emails, and it put my face to mine. That’s largely how I know that people appreciated my work and friendly style during the workday.
Maybe it’s obvious, but this also applies to work functions outside of your org!
A year after I left my full-time role, I volunteered at the Confab content strategy conference. I had no spare funds for a conference, but I wanted to learn. Turns out, I got the most value from making some great connections (and quickly learned that this is the real value of conferences anyway – go to them!).
I promise you, I felt awkward as hell for most of that conference. I was so tempted to stay quiet and hide in my room, but instead I joined a few tables when I had free time and kept an open mind. I channeled all the people who’ve included me in something and remembered how grateful I was when someone else had started a conversation.
It absolutely paid off, which says a lot since I’m often the queen of foot-in-mouth syndrome. Those connections have directly and indirectly led me to more potential work, other connections, AND the opportunity to become a ~thought leader~ in my niche.
Wanna be even more proactive about socializing?
Maybe you’ve mastered putting yourself out there, and that’s amazing! Hopefully I can still give your professional social butterfly a new idea.
About once a month, my aforementioned best work friend and I extended our normal after-work drinks to folks we liked around the office. We’d draft what we thought was a funny Outlook invite, add about 50 people on it, and see who showed up. Our company didn’t organize a ton of events, and we figured why not include everyone for a good time once in a while?
The events became a little notorious, and we always encouraged folks to pass along the invite if we missed someone who would want to come. Sometimes it was just us, sometimes we had quite a crowd!
Even if people didn’t come out, my name was in inboxes and on calendars once in a while for a positive, fun reason. People remember that.
Never tell yourself no
You’ve probably heard a version of this sentiment before – maybe you were told ‘you’ll never know if you don’t try’ or ‘it never hurts to ask’ when you were a kid. There’s nothing wrong with that phrasing, but it leaves out the consequences of your action or inaction.
‘Never tell yourself no’ presents everything in four simple words. If you don’t try, you’re telling yourself ‘no’ without ever giving the other party a chance to say yes. If you do try, it’s a reminder that at worst, someone else tells you what you almost told yourself anyway – so what’s the harm?
When it comes to networking, I’ve used this phrase as motivation to show up or use my voice, even if I don’t want to. It absolutely applies to the social butterfly concept, but it can apply to a variety of work-related things too.
If you’re not in the position to suggest a big project solution, start small! Open the lil accordions for stories about different ways I’ve benefitted from this advice. The first one especially is some great advice to live by (and maybe it’s shouldn’t be in an accordion, but I need to move on from this section, welcome to my messy writing process!)
I believe the ‘sophomore slump’ phase of a new role is universal – you’re not new anymore, but you’re still gathering the bits of experience in your role that will eventually make you very good at it. And that often means that you still have a lot of questions.
During this period, I often had a few options for who could answer my questions. Someone on my team could probably answer most things, but I felt like I was constantly asking the same people. I was at the point where I knew enough about the various roles and expertise around the office, so I started spreading inquiries around to different folks based on the question.
To be clear, I only ever asked quick questions over Skype/Teams/Slack. None were ever urgent or overly complicated. I only asked people who I already knew to some degree; we’d built some level of rapport, and I knew they would be happy to help. I also kept my questions directed to people where I could return the favor if it ever came up.
That last thing became key – asking a quick favor from someone on another team gave them an open invitation to do the same with me. Little favors back and forth can really add up to a valuable working friendship. Read/scroll to the end of this article for more thoughts on social currency, it’s so important in the workplace!
When my team was facing some crazy volume and the same questions over and over, I suggested sending out a BCC with all the information that people needed. We used that strategy for unaccepted account invitations, why not something else? I had no idea if it would work, I mean I barely read my personal emails. But my boss loved the idea, so we tested it out on a small scale.
Those emails were wildly effective and became our #1 strategy for proactively supporting our users. We adopted the same process for other case types and anticipated spikes in volume.
Because I chose to ignore that doubting inner voice when I had the idea, I helped my team and our users AND I opened some doors for myself too.
I had shown that I was capable of finding effective solutions to complicated situations, and leadership noticed. It also led to more trust with our product managers and attorneys. When they finally started reworking in-app notifications, I was on their list for approval of the content without needing to ask. (We’d been asking for proactive input for a few years, so that alone was MASSIVE for my team.)
I never said these networking powers can only benefit your work self!
I had a great relationship with one of our attorneys (using ALL of the things I’ve outlined thus far). We’d known each other a few years at that point. Shortly after he got married, someone told me he was out for a while on his honeymoon in Japan.
Was I a little miffed he hadn’t mentioned he was going to Japan? Yes.
So I sent him an email – I had a feeling he’d check in while he was out. The subject read something like, ‘Extremely urgent, please open!’ In the body, I wished him a nice honeymoon and requested a fun Kit Kat when he came back.
He later told me it was the only email he’d opened while he was out. He trusted that I wouldn’t send something like that unless it was worth his time. Yeah, I sort of corrupted that, but I was being nice and kept it very brief. It was mostly a joke and he knew that, but he did bring some back – enough that I could give one to everyone on my team, so I’d say it was worth it!
Ultimately, this advice translates to telling you to do the thing. Just do the thing. Always be respectful and lean into my other advice here, but don’t let you hold you back. Life is too short to wonder what if!
And if nothing else: Be there. Be in the room, be helpful (but don’t get in the way), be pleasant, and don’t expect anything in return. It’ll pay back in dividends.
Be your authentic self
Most of us put on some version of our work self when we enter the office. School (and life) taught us to sit still, to use certain words, to dress a certain way. It’s natural to try and fit in with your surroundings, to assimilate, to not distract from the work at hand.
At some point though, the facade usually starts to fall away. You’re a human being, and you can only hide so much of yourself for so long.
When you’re tempted to be more of your authentic self, especially around certain people, I’m here to give you permission: embrace it. It’s a good thing! There’s a reason we call it ‘letting our guard down.’ It means you feel safe in your working environment.
A few things to know about this principle:
- It’s pretty normal if this feeling only appears with certain relationships.
- Not everyone is interested in making work friends, and not every person is going to be your people. That’s ok, don’t force things!
- Read the room and the moment
- One-on-one time often prompts us to naturally relax, making it prime opportunity to connect with someone. Sometimes you need to vent or talk about something else for a minute – if the other person has space for that and it doesn’t overwhelm productive time, jump in!
- ALWAYS keep it work appropriate
- Do I need to elaborate? Respect people, the environment that frames your relationship, and healthy boundaries.
A quick cautionary note:
When I was burnt out before I left my role, I was letting my guard down a bit too much. Because I had been there for so long and because I consistently demonstrated my skills in my role, it was mostly a good thing for me. There were a few blips though: Someone gave me a lot of false hope about a role that was never going to work out, and someone else took advantage of my obvious desire for a change to raise their own position. Luckily, my authentic [oversharing] self only burned me by way of hurting my own feelings. I’ve seen stories where other folks have suffered much worse, so make sure that you read the room and ALWAYS keep things work appropriate. You really never know who is keeping an eye out for your best interests or an opportunity to get ahead.
Ultimately, we’re not work-only robots. Humans want to connect! So embrace that work friend, send them the thing that made you laugh. Being yourself and giving space for more connection is almost never a bad thing.
Social currency is a real thing. Keep putting coins in the jar.
All of my advice in this article effectively builds on your social currency within your organization. What is social currency?
To me, social currency describes how actions and words can lead to more social encounters. The concept exists in the social media and marketing spheres, and I encourage you to dive into the internet rabbithole for an actual definition, but I prefer to keep it a simple concept in my mind.
An example that may or may not clarify
I love fun facts. They’re very fun to know, but I also consider them a form of social currency. (Stuff You Should Know has served me so well with how I can add interesting tidbits into the most unexpected conversations.)
I can use those fun facts to give me an ‘in’ with people, almost like buying into a conversation. They likely make me more interesting to other people, and it’s objectively fun to talk to interesting people. Suddenly we’re all more engaged in a conversation, and things can go from there.
Social currency is a real thing at work too:
- Simple connections count so much (hence the focus of this article!)
- Favors are very real. Help out if you have bandwidth, cover when they’re out sick, do the LinkedIn review, give kudos in the meeting. If there’s something small that you can do, do the thing.
- Food. People love a snack, and that love almost always transfers to the person who provided it. If all else fails, remember: the fastest way to someone’s heart is through their stomach.
You should never expect anything to come out of your actions – assume that the only reward is feeling good about engaging or helping someone. But you never know what can happen when you keep putting coins in the jar. You just might earn yourself a favor to call in if you really need it.
And if doing for the sake of doing isn’t enough, still be a good person. If I leave you with anything after getting all the way to the end here, please – be a good person. That alone always goes a very long way!
Maring Eberlein
Some might call me a little obsessed with support content, and yeah… I’ve definitely found my niche somewhere between the support and content worlds. While growing within my first role in tech as a support agent, I saw the impacts of clear communication for users first-hand. I also experienced the challenges that come with a lack of resources for an undervalued craft. With a lot of luck and good people in my corner, I’ve been able to focus my work on my interests with the larger goal of supporting the supporters. I know you’re out there, and I hope this was helpful! Please contact me with any suggestions or requests!
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