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Founder’s Perspective, By Alfonso Barrera, Founder, HispanicPro – The Hispanic Professional Network

More than 20 years ago, during a meeting of Allstate’s Latino employee resource group at the company’s former headquarters in Northfield, Illinois, I heard Dr. Robert Rodriguez offer a piece of advice about networking that has stayed with me ever since:

“Don’t be a 911 networker.”

The phrase was simple, but the message behind it changed the way I thought about professional relationships. Do not wait until there is an emergency to begin building your network. Do not suddenly reach out because you lost your job, need an introduction, are searching for a client, want someone to recommend you or need a favor. By the time the need becomes urgent, you should already have invested in the relationships that make those conversations possible.

More than two decades later, that advice may be even more relevant. The tools have changed. Instead of picking up the telephone, we are more likely to send someone a LinkedIn message, text or email. But the underlying mistake is exactly the same: appearing in someone's inbox only when we need something from them.

Your Network Is Working Even When You Aren’t Looking for a Job

One of the biggest misconceptions about networking is that it becomes important when we begin looking for something. Research suggests almost the opposite. An analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that people who were employed and actively looking for work represented about 20% of the sample but received nearly half of all job offers. Perhaps even more telling, employed people who were not looking for another job still received approximately one quarter of all offers, more than unemployed workers in the study. Informal contacts, professional events, former coworkers, business associates and unsolicited outreach from employers and recruiters all contributed to how opportunities moved through the labor market.

Think about what that means. Professional opportunities do not conveniently wait until we announce that we need them. They circulate through relationships continuously. Conversations happen. People change companies. Someone hears about an opening. A former colleague remembers someone they worked with three years ago. A business contact makes an introduction. A person you met at an event thinks of you when an opportunity crosses their desk.

That is why networking only when you need something puts you at a disadvantage. You are attempting to create in days or weeks something that is much more powerful when developed over months and years.

Relationships Have Measurable Career Value

The importance of professional relationships is not merely conventional career advice. Research on employee referrals has found meaningful differences in employment outcomes. A study published in the Journal of Labor Economics examining hiring at a large U.S. corporation found that referred candidates were more likely to be hired, received an initial wage advantage and remained with the organization longer than nonreferred workers.

Another landmark study demonstrates why your network should extend beyond the people you know best. Researchers writing in Science analyzed randomized experiments involving more than 20 million LinkedIn users over five years, during which approximately 2 billion new professional connections and 600,000 new jobs were created. The researchers found causal evidence supporting the value of what sociologists call “weak ties,” particularly moderately weak professional connections, in generating job mobility.

That distinction matters. Your closest friends and colleagues are essential, but they often know many of the same people and have access to much of the same information you do. Someone you meet through a professional organization, industry gathering or networking event can connect you to an entirely different circle of companies, industries, decision makers and opportunities.

The lesson is not that every person you meet will advance your career. They won't. The lesson is that expanding and maintaining relationships increases the surface area across which opportunity can find you.

The Best Networking Often Starts With Giving

The strongest professional networks are built differently from the emergency model. They develop through repeated interactions, visibility, credibility and generosity. You make an introduction because two people should know one another. You share an opportunity because someone in your network would be a good fit. You congratulate someone on a promotion. You recommend someone's work. You attend professional gatherings and support organizations even when you are not actively searching for a job or trying to close a deal.

You become known not simply for what you need, but for what you contribute.

That is an important distinction because networking is ultimately an investment in professional trust. When someone has seen you participate, contribute, make introductions and support others, the relationship is fundamentally different from receiving a LinkedIn message from someone who has been absent for years and suddenly needs a favor.

There is nothing wrong with asking your network for help. That is one of the reasons networks exist. The problem is allowing the request for help to become the beginning of the relationship instead of one part of an established relationship.

For Latino Professionals, Hard Work Is Necessary But It Is Not Enough

There is an important cultural dimension to this conversation for Latino professionals as well. For many of us, intentional professional networking was not necessarily modeled as part of career development. We may have grown up hearing a much more straightforward formula: work hard, do a good job and your work will speak for itself.

Hard work matters enormously. But after years of working with Latino professionals, companies and professional organizations, I have come to believe that careers and businesses do not operate on performance alone. Relationships matter. Visibility matters. Access matters. And professional trust does not automatically exist simply because two people share a cultural background. It still has to be developed.

That is why I believe one of the most important shifts we can make is moving from “What can this person do for me?” to “What can I contribute to this relationship?”

Becoming a giver changes networking from a transaction into an investment. Over time, those investments create a professional community around you. They also establish something that cannot be manufactured when a crisis suddenly arrives: people who know who you are, understand what you do and have some reason to trust you.

The Need to Network Is Always There. The Urgency Shouldn’t Be.

There is always a reason to continue building your professional network, even when everything in your career or business appears to be going well. Careers evolve. Companies reorganize. Leadership changes. Industries contract and expand. Businesses need customers, employees and strategic partners. Professionals change industries, pursue promotions, launch companies and eventually look for their next opportunity.

You may not know what you will need next, but the need to remain connected is always there.

That is precisely why this Friday's 18th Annual ¡Viva La Hispanidad! Hispanic Heritage Month Kickoff Celebration at I|O Godfrey Roofscape in Chicago is an opportunity Latino professionals and allies should not miss.

HispanicPro is bringing professionals, business leaders and representatives from influential Latino professional and community organizations into the same room. That creates something LinkedIn cannot completely replicate: the opportunity to meet someone face to face, have an unplanned conversation, discover what another professional is working on and create a connection that did not exist when you walked through the door.

This is exactly the kind of room you should be in before you need something from the room.

Come prepared to connect. Reconnect with people you already know, but do not spend the entire evening inside your existing circle. Introduce yourself to someone new. Ask what people are working on. Tell them what you are working on. If you realize two people should know each other, introduce them. Be curious about industries and professions outside your own.

The research on professional relationships helps explain why those seemingly simple interactions matter. A new acquaintance can provide access to information and networks that do not exist within your closest circle. A referral can materially affect hiring outcomes. And opportunities can reach professionals who are not even actively searching for them.

You cannot predict which conversation will matter. That is precisely why you have to keep having the conversations.

Be in the Room Before You Need the Room

More than 20 years after hearing Dr. Rodriguez make that observation at Allstate, I still think about it. The phrase “911 networker” may have been coined in a very different professional era, but the behavior it describes has not disappeared. We have simply replaced the emergency telephone call with the emergency LinkedIn message, email or text.

The solution has not changed either.

Build relationships when things are going well. Expand your circle before you need an introduction. Give before you ask. Stay visible before you need to be remembered.

And when there is an opportunity to put yourself in a room filled with professionals you know and professionals you have yet to meet, take it.

This Friday, be in the room. Not because you have an emergency, but because the best time to build the relationships you may need tomorrow is before you need them today.

Sources

• Brown, M., Setren, E., & Topa, G. (2016). Do informal referrals lead to better matches? Evidence from a firm's employee referral system. Journal of Labor Economics, 34(1), 161–209.
• Rajkumar, K., Saint-Jacques, G., Bojinov, I., Brynjolfsson, E., & Aral, S. (2022). A causal test of the strength of weak ties. Science, 377(6612), 1304–1310.
• Topa, G. (2017). How do people find jobs? Liberty Street Economics, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.