The importance of Fringe Networking

Karen Tisdell, who recently became a Career, Money Life Certified Supplier, has some great advice on how to build your network, not just when you are looking for a new role, but all the time, with wide circles of people who may be able to help you and you can give back to. Karen calls this Fringe networking.

Here is Karen’s LinkedIn post on the topic

All Jobs are temporary! Redundancy Proof yourself now by Fringe Networking

Redundancy is now an everyday part of the employment cycle: the workplace has turned into a game of snakes and ladders, with the “snakes” being disappearing industries, shifting economic trends and market changes.

Your skills and experience aren’t enough to guarantee an instant “ladder” to a new job. Investing in new skills will not help you. The one reliable ladder is networking.

But you have heard that before, right?

You know about networking and you’ve doing it for decades, right?

Most likely not.

Out of all the high achievers I meet – CEO’s, supply chain leaders, program managers – 95% do not network properly. Or they network at the wrong time.

The people who recover most efficiently by jumping from the snake of redundancy up the ladder of a new role are those who consistently expand their network, in good times as well as bad. They fringe network.

This means catching up with DIFFERENT associates weekly.

Yes. You read that correctly. Different people. Weekly.

Those with a redundancy strategy don’t limit themselves to a close clique of fifteen people who all watch each other’s backs. They have hundreds and hundreds of acquaintances.