Career Gymnastics + The Importance of Networking

Whenever my friend Jeff and I have breakfast we almost always make room to share something about our most recent networking activities.  Most recently, Jeff shared a story about his good friend John.  During the last 2-3 years John has worked at four different companies.  His moves from one company to another took a number of twists and turns.

John had worked with one of the large social media companies for a number of years.  He lost his job as the result of a massive downsizing.  He immediately launched into job search mode and learned about an opportunity via his network with a California based company.  It was a small media company that was looking to increase sales and build it’s brand by expanding its product line.  John had some immediate success and landed a contract with a new type of customer.  As John worked on landing more new clients he began to experience resistance to his efforts.  The culture of this company was deeply embedded in what they had done for the last 20 years.

What John experienced during the hiring experience was lots of enthusiasm to build the brand.  Once he was on board and working to make the changes the company said they wanted, he realized this was a losing battle.  So after a year of trying John decided he needed to once again start a new job search.