Using your network as a search asset

You have more than you think, and less than you hope

Twenty years of work produces hundreds of former colleagues, and they are now distributed across exactly the companies you are interested in. That is the asset. The catch is that its value is concentrated: most of those relationships have decayed to the point where a request would be awkward, and a handful are still live enough to carry real weight.

Knowing which is which — before you need it — is the work almost nobody does.

Three questions worth answering honestly

• Where does my network actually sit? Not by name — by company, sector and seniority. Most people discover their network is dense in the industry they are leaving and thin in the one they want.
• Which relationships are still warm? A warm contact is someone who would recognise your name instantly and reply the same week. That list is shorter than your contacts list by an order of magnitude.
• Where am I blind? Target companies where you know nobody at all. This is the most useful output, because it is the gap that a few deliberate re-engagements can close.

Re-engage before you need anything

The single biggest error is contacting people for the first time in six years with a request attached. It is transparent, and it puts the other person in an uncomfortable position — which they resolve by being vague.

The right time to reconnect is when you want nothing. That is also the only time it costs you nothing.

How to ask, when you do ask

Be specific and make it small. "Do you still know anyone in the finance team at X? I am trying to understand how they are structuring the function" is answerable in one line. "Could you keep me in mind for opportunities" gives the reader nothing to act on and will be forgotten before they close the tab.

And ask for an introduction rather than a recommendation. An introduction costs your contact a message; a recommendation costs them their credibility. People give the first far more freely, and the first is what actually opens the door.

A word on the awkwardness

Senior people are asked for introductions constantly and are far less bothered by it than you assume — provided the ask is specific, easy to decline and not the first thing you have said to them in years. The discomfort you feel is usually about you, not about them.