The skill of intentionally building and maintaining meaningful professional relationships to drive mutual growth and create opportunities.
Networking is not about collecting business cards or amassing contacts. It is the ability to strategically design and sustain relationships that provide value to both parties over time. As Granovetter (1973) demonstrated, weak ties serve as critical bridges for novel information and opportunities. Dunbar (1992) showed that humans face cognitive limits on how many relationships they can actively maintain, structured in layers of roughly 5, 15, 50, and 150. Burt (1992) added that the real competitive advantage comes not from the number of connections but from bridging structural holes between otherwise disconnected groups. This guide is distinct from communication (message delivery skills) and influence-and-persuasion (persuasion techniques), focusing instead on the strategic capability of building, maintaining, and expanding relationships themselves.
You recognize that networking matters for career growth and personal development, but approaching strangers still feels awkward. You can deliver a concise self-introduction and record new contacts for future reference. As Dunbar (1992) showed, there are cognitive limits on how many relationships you can maintain — even at this stage, building the habit of consciously tracking a small number of contacts within the innermost circle (roughly 5 close ties) sets the foundation.
What Comes Next
If you have checked off most of this list, you are ready to move into the Relationship Keeper stage, where you sustain relationships after the initial meeting and begin providing value before expecting anything in return. Ferrazzi (2014) stresses that the real power of networking lies not in the meeting itself but in the follow-up actions that come after.
Seminal sociology paper demonstrating that weak ties serve as critical bridges for transmitting novel information and opportunities. Theoretical foundation for L3-L5 network diversification and structural hole strategies.
Large-scale causal study using 200 million LinkedIn profiles proving that weak ties causally contribute to job mobility. Provides quantitative evidence for L3-L5 network management checklist items.
Establishes the cognitive limit of approximately 150 stable relationships (Dunbar's number). Scientific basis for L1-L4 relationship scale design and L5+ strategies for overcoming cognitive constraints.
Practical framework for relationship building and strategic networking methodology. Evidence base for L2-L5 checklist items on relationship maintenance, value exchange, and connector roles.
Foundational theory of structural holes demonstrating that individuals who bridge disconnected groups gain information and control advantages. Provides the theoretical authority for L3-L6 network positioning strategies, validating that strategic bridging (not just relationship quantity) drives networking value.
