Network Building Strategies

Introduction

Networking is a fairly overwhelming task, with an endless ocean of people to interact with. Even once you meet them, it’s hard to understand how to keep the relationship alive.

Here’s the big secret- If you follow this one rule, everything else will follow naturally:

Provide value to others, at every opportunity that you can.

By doing this with intention, it forces you to understand HOW you can provide value to people, which requires a bit of upfront effort. A beneficial first step is in laying out all of the people you have access to now, understanding their position and what would provide value to them within that role, then being proactive about expanding in those directions.

In this section, we are going to: 1. Go through your LinkedIn data and understand who your contacts are 2. Understand the data behind connection type and your rates of connection 3. Segment connections into profiles 4. Understand how you can add value to each connection profile 5. Create a tracking system to be mindful about connecting

First, who is in your network?

In this exercise, we’re going to download our LinkedIn connection data and use an LLM to parse the data, understanding what industries, jobs, and sectors our network currently is in. This strategy also works for other mediums, but LinkedIn is a great place to start, given how clean the export is.

Exercise: Relationship Portfolio Analysis & Development

This exercise maps your current network, identifies critical gaps, and designs targeted expansion strategies based on your specific career goals.

Exercise Components:

1. LinkedIn Network Extraction & Analysis Export your existing LinkedIn connections to establish a baseline of your current professional network.

Steps to export your LinkedIn connections:

1. Log into your LinkedIn account
2. Click on "Me" (your profile icon)
3. Select "Settings & Privacy" from the dropdown
4. Navigate to "Data privacy" section
5. Find "How LinkedIn uses your data" and click on "Get a copy of your data"
6. Select the first box and request the archive
7. LinkedIn will email you when your connections data is ready to download, which comes in two stages

Once you have your connections spreadsheet, use this prompt with your chosen LLM, using one that lets you upload Excel spreadsheets:

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I've uploaded my LinkedIn connections data and want to analyze my professional network. I would like to work in [specific sectors/roles]. I'll share details about my connections (or upload the CSV file), including: - Names - Current companies/organizations - Current positions - Connected dates Please help me: 1. Map my top 20 professional relationships across these categories:
• Academic Specialty (professors, peers, collaborators in my specific research area)
• Adjacent Fields (researchers in complementary disciplines)
• Industry Targets (professionals in sectors where I want to work)
• Career Support (mentors, advisors, former graduates)
2. Identify which sectors are over/under-represented compared to my career targets 3. Analyze connection recency and growth rate over time 4. Highlight potential strategic connections (people connected to multiple target sectors) 5. Recommend specific outreach prioritization based on this analysis
6. Identify obvious gaps based on my career interests
• Suggest 3-5 specific types of connections I should prioritize

With this in hand, we can now start to think about how to fill in these gaps and be more proactive about building a focused network. The next step faces us to think clearly about how to prioritize and build relationships with others.
2. Connection Gap Plan Create a spreadsheet with these columns:
• Target Connection Type
• Why This Connection Matters
• Current Access Points
• Relationship Building Approach
• Success Metrics

For each critical gap identified in your mapping exercise, complete all columns with concrete action items. Some examples are posted below:

Target Connection Type- Data Scientists

Why This Connection Matters- Ideal job for me

Current Access Points- 2 PhD’s in Data Science and 1 Data Scientist with 2 years experience

Relationship Building Approach: Connect with leadership at companies who use data science as a critical company function, and with managers of those teams, plus a few actual data scientists to help understand the job/give referrals.

Success Metrics: If I am seeing posts about cutting-edge data science work being posted by people who I have had 2+ conversations with, that is successful.
3. Value Exchange Proposition Development Now we want to understand how we can give value to people, and not have to constantly be asking for help. This work happens over time, and will work best if started early in your career.

Try plugging this prompt in, following up on your earlier thread:

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Following up on the segments outlined before, help me identify:
1. What specific expertise, perspectives, or resources do I have that would be valuable to these professionals?
2. How can I frame my research experience in terms that resonate with their priorities?
3. What are 3 concrete ways I could provide value in an initial conversation beyond talking about my job search?
4. Help me draft a brief (2-3 sentence) value statement that clearly communicates what I bring to professional relationships in this sector.
4. Relationship Nurturing System If you really wanted to go above and beyond here, you may want to be diligent about targeting a few people to connect directly with, and being organized about it. This may feel less organic, but this is tactic is very commonly used in business, and is the entire point of billion-dollar CRM companies like Hubspot and SalesForce, so don’t feel bad!

External Resources:

• Connected Papers: Tool for discovering academic connections beyond your immediate circle
• Lunchclub.ai: AI-powered professional connection platform that facilitates 1:1 meetings
• LinkedIn Alumni Tool: Filter your university's alumni by industry, location, and company