Time to clean out unproductive networking contacts -- Career Center Blog

January 23, 2012

Time to clean out unproductive networking contacts

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By Randy Woods
NWjobs

Last November, talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel struck a nerve with many people when he announced his second annual National Unfriend Day, which encouraged people to delete certain "friends" from their Facebook pages who are not really their friends. You know the kinds of people he meant: Those obsessed with their pets, those who upload pictures of their dinners, those who write comments like "Amazeballs!"

It was all in good fun and probably a good idea, even for job seekers, since Facebook's utility as a networking tool has devolved over the last couple of years into a daily parade of frivolous nonsense. As former Career Center blogger Michelle Goodman pointed out last year, most HR people never even bother to track employees' habits on Facebook anymore.

For your more serious job-search network tools, such as LinkedIn and Twitter, I would never advise a Kimmelesque removal of certain people entirely -- you never know where your next job lead may come from. But I do think periodic reassessments should be made about the productivity of your contacts, if only to make it easier to wade through the constant flood of digital information each day.

January seems like a good time for new starts, so here are some places I like to revisit annually.

Twitter feeds: While it's always nice to have as many followers as possible on Twitter, that's not always the case for the people whom you follow. Many times I've followed someone who looked like a promising professional contact only to find out six months later that the person was more interested in Ashton Kutcher and the Kardashians than in serious networking. Ask yourself: How many leads have you found for each person you follow? Are you bombarded with 75 meaningless tweets a day from the same person? How many times have people responded to you with direct tweets? If a year has gone by without much to show for it, perhaps it's time to cull the herd and allow the more productive "follows" to stand out.

LinkedIn groups: These groups are vitally important to any job seeker, as they connect you directly to the people with similar interests in your profession. However, even these groups need to be monitored. Are there any groups that have not produced many responses to your queries? Are you only hearing from the same three people in that group? If so, then it might be easier to cut back your daily updates to just weekly or monthly. If you've recently changed professions or are seeking a higher level of responsibility, make sure that is reflected in the groups you join. You don't have to dump your older groups, but you don't want to waste valuable time with those that are unresponsive.

Personal references: If you have an active relationship with colleagues on your reference list, then by all means keep them there indefinitely. But beware if some of these references have moved on to one or more other jobs outside your industry and may no longer carry as much weight with a hiring manager. Are there any new people to add with a more direct connection to what you have done professionally in the last year? If you haven't worked with a reference for several years, it may be time to "retire" that person, regardless of how good they've been to you. Also, be careful not to rely too heavily on the same two or three references; they will probably appreciate the break from having to describe their experiences with you yet again.

After all, what are "friends" for, anyway?

Randy Woods writes about job-search tools, networking techniques and other tips to help you land your dream job.

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lauren | February 28, 2013 5:04 AM | Reply

Great post. I agree, you should delete some people from your Facebook once in awhile but not from other serious network tools. I have a LinkedIn and I don't think I would ever delete anyone just for the reason you said. You never know where the next job opportunity is going to come from. Thanks so much for sharing, this was a great read.