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Why People Want Your Networking Requests (And Will Say Yes), with Tad Mayer

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Are you afraid of annoying others by asking them for time to “pick their brain?” There is a better way to ask for someone’s time, says Find Your Dream Job guest Tad Mayer. You begin by figuring out exactly what information you want from this person. But the most important piece, according to Tad, is understanding what you can offer to them. If you have something they value, they are more likely to give you 30 minutes of their time. Tad also recommends asking questions that allow the other person to share their career stories. Networking is a great way to draw out details that can help you in your own career journey. 

About Our Guest:

Tad Mayer is a career coach at Essex Partners. His company helps senior executives in transition. 

Resources in This Episode:

Transcript

Find Your Dream Job, Episode 435:

Why People Want Your Networking Requests (And Will Say Yes), with Tad Mayer

Airdate: January 31, 2024

Mac Prichard:

This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life.

I’m your host, Mac Prichard. I’m also the founder of Mac’s List. It’s a job board in the Pacific Northwest that helps you find a fulfilling career.

Every Wednesday, I talk to a different expert about the tools you need to get the work you want.

Find Your Dream Job is brought to you by TopResume. TopResume has helped more than 400,000 professionals land more interviews and get hired faster.

Get a free review of your resume today.

Go to macslist.org/topresume.

You’re doing a job search.

A coworker shares a contact at one of your target companies.

Why in the world would someone you don’t know make time to see you?

Tad Mayer is here to talk about why people want your networking requests and will say yes to helping you.

He’s a career coach at Essex Partners. His company helps senior executives in transition.

Tad is also the co-author of Finding a Job That Loves You Back.

And he joins us from Boston, Massachusetts.

Well, Tad, I want to break our conversation into two parts. Let’s start by talking about why people will say yes to networking requests, and then let’s talk about how to network well. I know you have some specific tips about how to do that.

But I want to start with networking itself, Tad. I talk to candidates a lot, as I know you do as well, and often, I get people asking me why do you need to network at all when you look for work. Why can’t you just apply for jobs and wait for the employer to call?

Tad Mayer:

There are really two primary reasons, Mac. The first one is it’s the best way to land an interview and a job. And then, second to that is, it also builds community in your job search.

So what I mean by those is, it’s the best way to land an interview because there’s conflicting research out there, but somewhere between sixty-five and eighty-five percent of people who are job searching get an interview, and ultimately, their job through some sort of connection at the company. So those are pretty high odds that you got to meet.

Second, when you’re job searching, you want that community because you need the connection with people to keep going. You need buddies. You need people who can help you get through the day because you’re kind of on your own in a job search. So those are the primary reasons.

Mac Prichard:

Can you find a job without networking?

Tad Mayer:

You can. But the two things that come up are it takes longer, and it’s much harder to get the job you want because your options are more limited because, as you know, there’s a whole hidden job market out there of all kinds of, again, different research, somewhere forty to fifty percent of jobs are never posted. So, if you don’t network, you’ll never find out about those. So you’re already reducing the pool of options.

Mac Prichard:

Why are so many job seekers reluctant to network, Tad? Again, you talk to candidates all the time. What are they telling you about why they are reluctant to network?

Tad Mayer:

It’s primarily because they don’t feel like they belong, or they feel like it’s schmoozy or salesy and inauthentic. And so they don’t want to do it, and the reason for that is that they see it as a transaction instead of building a relationship.

There’s a former colleague of mine who wrote a book called “You, You, Me, You”, and the reason for that title is it’s supposed to get across the idea that it’s all about the other person, and if you make it about the other person you can build the relationship instead of just having the uncomfortable begging for information conversation.

Mac Prichard:

Well, let’s talk about why people will say yes to your networking requests. You have a number of reasons here. I want to walk through them one by one. The first one is you say people will say yes because you’re meeting that other person’s needs. Tell us more about that, Tad.

Tad Mayer:

Yeah, people have intrinsic and extrinsic needs, and networkers or job seekers often overlook that. So, if I ask you for a meeting or an informational interview, I’m acknowledging that you’re an expert in something that I need, and that acknowledgement can fulfill you in some way.

Also, you may get a charge out of mentoring or coaching me and feeling that you’re helping launch me into my career. Also, you may learn something from me, either from my past career or from other companies and other people I’ve spoken with. I might have learned information you don’t, so I might be able to give you something that’s valuable in that way.

And then the more extrinsic needs, such as interests that people have. I had an informational interview with someone when I was an early career coach, and in their LinkedIn profile, it said that they were fascinated by the overlap between coaching and dispute resolution. Well, it happened to be that I used to be a mediator before I was a coach. So I knew that space very well.

So, when I reached out for the meeting, I mentioned why I wanted to meet. But I also said, by the way, I noticed in your LinkedIn profile that you’re interested in this area. I used to be a mediator; I’m a coach now. I’d love to talk to you about it. And that was directly meeting one of their needs. So, through all of this, it’s all about meeting their needs.

Mac Prichard:

When you make that request for an informational interview, how can you best focus on the other person’s expertise?

Tad Mayer:

Doing your research. We’re gonna get into networking a little further, but one of the parts of networking is doing your homework on the people you’re meeting with. That’s partly their online footprint, LinkedIn, social media, et cetera, interviews they’ve given, talks they’ve given that are online. By doing those, you can find out what they’re expert in, what they do, what they care about, and you can overlap that with what you need to know. We’re gonna get into the fact that you need to have a goal when you’re networking. But that’s critical is lining up what you need with what’s important to them and what they do.

Mac Prichard:

Should you ever send a request? I think common ones we’ve all seen at different points in our career – examples include things like, can we get together for coffee? Can I pick your brain? Should you send a general request like that? Or should you always understand the expertise of the person you want to meet before you reach out?

Tad Mayer:

You want to understand the expertise, one because it’s rare, but maybe they’re not helpful to you. Again, that’s rare because I’ve had people who have taken their trash out and run into someone on the street, and that’s the person who got them a job. So you never know.

But you want to be specific in your request of why you want to meet because you don’t want to assume that they know because they don’t. So you’ve got to make it clear what your goal is and why you want to meet. And then you can ask them if they want to meet for coffee or lunch or something like that because that also may meet a need. But you want to be clear.

Mac Prichard:

Well, your second suggestion for why people will say yes to your networking request and help you is that they’re gonna be curious about you. Why would someone you don’t know, Tad, want to learn more about you?

Tad Mayer:

Well, part of it is – that part of the curiosity is from just wanting to help. A lot of people have received a lot of help in their careers, and they want to pay it forward. But again, getting back to the needs, sometimes they just want to help.

The other thing is that people are curious about other people. We don’t want to forget that as a job seeker. It’s not like suddenly, because we’re looking for a job, we’re worthless, or we’re not interesting.

And so, the more you can put into that initial email why you might be interesting to them, such as the conflict resolution and coaching that I mentioned before, can really help spur on getting the meeting because it’ll pique their curiosity.

Mac Prichard:

A third point you make about why people will say yes to your networking request is that you’ve got information to share. What kind of information, Tad, can a job seeker offer? Especially if you’re reaching out to somebody who might be a well-known leader in your industry.

Tad Mayer:

Well, it’s interesting because there, again, we’ll get into it, but there are different layers of networking, and one of them is informational interviews, meeting with someone for true information. When you do that, you may meet with, let’s say, you are trying to learn about different companies. So, let’s say you’re in the tech sector, and you’ve met some of the big names.

If you go to one of the companies, that person isn’t necessarily talking to those other companies every day, whereas you have been. If you’ve picked something up that’s non-proprietary, of course, from those other companies, and you’ve put together some sort of a trend or something, they’ll be fascinated by that.

Mac Prichard:

Finally, the last point you make about why people will say yes to your networking request is that people you want to meet with are gonna want to share their own stories. Tell us more about this and why that matters when you’re networking.

Tad Mayer:

That is critical. This gets back to the “You, You, Me, You” thing. You want to make the meeting about them. And so, as an example, if you’re doing an informational interview, you don’t go in there – many people go into informational interviews trying to impress the person they’re meeting with. That’s not the goal. The goal is to get information.

So you want to engage them by asking them a question where the information will be helpful to you. Such as, let’s say you want to become a media planner and advertiser, and they’re a media planner. You can ask them, why did you get into media planning? Or what’s it like being a media planner? Or what do you like or what do you dislike about being a media planner?

By asking those questions, it gets them to engage, it gets them to talk, which people love to do, especially about themselves, and you’re not boring them. You’re engaging them.

Mac Prichard:

Terrific. We’re gonna take a break. So stay with us. When we return, Tad Mayer will continue to share his advice about why people want your networking requests and will say yes to helping you, and we’ve talked about the why, Tad. I want to dig into the how, and I know you have three specific tips for how to do that. So stay with us.

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Now, let’s get back to the show.

We’re back in the Mac’s List studio. I’m talking with Tad Mayer.

He’s a career coach at Essex Partners. His company helps senior executives in transition.

Tad is also the co-author of Finding a Job That Loves You Back.

He joins us from Boston, Massachusetts.

Now, Tad, before the break, we were talking about why people want your networking requests and will say yes to helping you, and you took us through four reasons why that is so.

Now, let’s talk about how to network well, and you’ve got three tips that you share with your clients that I’d like to walk through. The first one, effective networkers know their goals. Why is it important to have a goal for a networking meeting, Tad? Why not just wing it?

Tad Mayer:

Well, the shortest answer is it’s just like driving a car. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never get there. And so it’s essential to know why you’re going to the meeting. I’ve met with many clients who say networking doesn’t work, and I asked them what their goal was, and they didn’t have one.

So, often, the goal, goals can be varied. Sometimes, it’s because you want to brainstorm with someone to try to figure out what you want to do next, or it may be an informational interview to really get information about what that job, or that industry, or that company may be like. Not a ruse to try to get a job interview. It’s really that information.

Or you may want to get information about a person you’re gonna be interviewing with to find out what’s important to them so you can really do well in the interview and meet their needs, again.

And even after you land a job, it can be helpful because, let’s say, you get a project you don’t really know how to do well. You can reach your network and ask someone for advice on the best way to approach it. So, the layers of networking are really important to think about because it is much more than just trying to find a connection to the job.

Mac Prichard:

What if you’re not clear about your goal? What do you recommend to your clients that they do to get that clarity before they make that request?

Tad Mayer:

Think about and talk to someone even more. It is much easier to talk through dialogue and figure out what’s important to you than to stare at the wall in your office or your bedroom and try to figure out what it should be. So, I really recommend bringing a buddy, talking with a coach, something to figure out what that goal is and be clear.

Mac Prichard:

Who’s in charge of the meeting? You’ve made the request. You understand what your goal is. You walk into the room. Who runs the meeting, Tad?

Tad Mayer:

That’s a great question and so important because you do. You’re the one who requested the meeting. Therefore, you’re the interviewer. And most people don’t think of that. They’re expecting the other person to run the meeting, and so it’s this blank stare-off for a while. You have to figure out an agenda that is important. You’re running a meeting. So you’ve got to figure out how to meet your goal.

Mac Prichard:

Well, let’s talk about agendas. Why do you need an agenda? Maybe you know your goal. But why can’t you just, again, get together and see where the conversation takes you? Why is an agenda necessary?

Tad Mayer:

Because, again, you want to stand out in this meeting. You want it to be something where, again, you don’t have to impress anybody, but you want to have a good connection with the person you’re meeting with.

And that takes a little planning, and also, in that agenda you want to do it in a way that will get to the goal and that will engage, as we talked about before, will engage that other person. And winging it can often lead to not doing that. So, you’ve got to be effective in that.

Mac Prichard:

How do you recommend creating that agenda? Do you, for example, have your clients actually sit down and write two or three points on a pad of paper before they walk into the room? What have you found to be effective?

Tad Mayer:

We do, and we actually because so many people are hesitant about networking and especially informational interviews. I’ll use those as an example. We came up with the simplest formula for an agenda for an informational interview to make it as comfortable as possible for the client.

The first step is to ask them, again, engage them by asking them a question that you care about the information that you’ll learn. As we said before, why did you get into media planning? What do you like about it? What don’t you? They get to talk about themselves. You get to learn.

The second part is after you give them a little snippet about your background and what’s important to you. The second agenda item is what advice do they have for you to get into that company, that role, or that industry.

So that’s it, background information. And then what advice do you have for me? And you can make it more complicated if you want, but that’s the simplest informational interview that I know of.

Mac Prichard:

And tell us how that’s gonna help you. What difference can a conversation about those two topics make in a job search?

Tad Mayer:

Great question. So, the first one, asking for their story, basically, about media planning in this situation. You are gonna learn things you didn’t know you wanted to ask about. They’re gonna hit subject areas about the industry, about the role that you didn’t know you didn’t know. And so, that’s why that broad, open-ended question is so valuable.

But the advice, the second part, is so rich because you can go to a thousand websites and do research, but those are not gonna customize the information to you. And so, to go to someone and be able to give them a one or two-minute overview of what’s important to you in your next role, and then be able to say, if you were in my shoes, what would you do? And they actually take that on. One, they’re gonna be very grounded in your search, which is pretty exciting, and two, they’re gonna come up with ideas you won’t get anywhere else.

Mac Prichard:

So those are the agenda items you recommend your clients use. I’m curious: are there questions that you always recommend people ask in these conversations?

Tad Mayer:

So, a good way to close often is, is there anyone else you think I should speak with? Because we’re always trying to expand our network. So, that’s one.

Others really depend on the conversation to think about what real questions do you have. We want this to be authentic. So what real questions do you have in the moment to ask this person?

Mac Prichard:

What’s your best advice for putting together those questions for that particular person? What have you seen work?

Tad Mayer:

So, again, researching that person, researching the company that they work for, doing whatever research you can on the role, and again, it’s about setting the goal. If you’re trying to learn about a company, you’re gonna have questions about the company. So, as you do your research about the company, you’re gonna want to look for things you’re really excited about as well as red flags.

And so, have some questions about, am I reading this right? I read this on the site, or I read this in the news. Is that really the way it is, or is there something I’m missing?

Mac Prichard:

Your final tip for effective networking is to understand the outcomes you want. So, what are examples of effective outcomes?

Tad Mayer:

So, for informational interviews, you’re not gonna walk out of an informational interview or out of any networking meeting – either it’s brainstorming for what you want or learning about the person you might interview with – you’re not gonna walk out with a job. So don’t think you are. You really want to think about that role.

So, let’s say you’re meeting with someone to learn about an interviewer because they used to work with them, and you connected with them. Success in that situation looks like knowing something that you didn’t already know by the research you did about that person that would be helpful in the interview. Something that’s important to them. Something that you may be able to mention. Something that you might be able to mention overlap with. Maybe there’s some sort of affinity or affiliation.

So, it depends on what the goal is. But you have to match up the goal with who that person is to get that information.

Mac Prichard:

Do you recommend, just as you did a moment ago, not only setting goals for the meeting and having an agenda but setting specific outcomes that you’d like to see come out of an informational interview?

Tad Mayer:

Yeah, and it’s a good point. I wrapped that into goals in my own head, so I’m glad you pulled those apart. You really do because, again, if you don’t know where you’re going, you won’t get there. So, you have to understand those outcomes.

And if the meeting’s not going that way, you can be pretty transparent and say, wow, thank you for all this information. One thing I’m really, really interested in is this, and you can move the conversation to that. And typically, they’ll appreciate that because you’re running the meeting as we mentioned earlier.

Mac Prichard:

What happens if you don’t identify specific outcomes that you want before you walk into that room for the meeting?

Tad Mayer:

You’ll probably think the meeting was worthless because you will walk out thinking, I didn’t accomplish anything, and it’s because you didn’t figure out what you wanted to accomplish and you don’t have the job yet. So, why was this helpful? So, you have to be really clear going in about what’s important to you and about what you want to accomplish, to your point.

Mac Prichard:

Well, it’s been a terrific conversation, Tad. Now, tell us, what’s next for you?

Tad Mayer:

So, as you know, I’ve coauthored, you mentioned the book, “Finding a Job That Loves You Back.” Very excited to be working on that, and I’m really focused on my own practice on later in that, especially because I work with senior leaders. Later in the book is your career fulfillment and really trying to figure out what you want your legacy to be and what you want to do in those last years of your career. And I’m really having fun diving deeper into that at this point.

Mac Prichard:

Well, terrific. I know that listeners can learn more about you and your book by connecting with you on LinkedIn, and when they do reach out to you there, I hope they’ll mention they heard you on Find Your Dream Job.

Now, Tad, given all of the great advice you’ve shared today, what’s the one thing you want a listener to remember about why people want your networking requests and will say yes to helping you?

Tad Mayer:

The reason to ask for them is because you can do it alone, or you can ask for help. But you can’t do it alone. And so, that means you have to get help. And so, think of those interests. What’s important to them? What are those intrinsic and extrinsic needs that they have? And how can you meet them to make them curious about you or want to meet with you?

Mac Prichard:

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Next week, our guest will be Amechi Udo.

He’s the founder of Your Career Matters.

Amechi’s company helps you take charge of your career.

You will likely change careers several times.

What’s the best way to do this?

Join us next Wednesday when Amechi Udo and I talk about the seven steps to career change success.

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