Who you know isn't the most important thing after all.

There is an old saying “it’s not what you know it’s who you know”. Basically this refers to the fact that being good at something will only get you so far you need to know someone who is higher up or well-connected or just has there foot in the door. The phrase refers to something more commonly known as networking. Networking is something that I'm sure many of you have heard lots about over your time at university and indeed throughout your life and the aforementioned phrase highlights the fact that having a big network will not doubt be beneficial to all of us.

While having a large network of people you know available to you is very important what’s more important is how the people in that network feel about you. There is not point know all these people if they think you are lazy, unemployable or just not good to work with. Your network needs to be full of people who think highly enough of you to do you a favour. This doesn't mean you have to be able to do them a favour it means that they need to see enough in you to suggest that there help may pay off one day. People are often a lot more willing to help than you may think and if your network is full of people willing to help you get better then that is a good first step. During my internship I have seen the benefits of having a network of people who are willing to help you out. My supervisor often calls in favours to other departments for information, a helping hand or simply advice. The advice she gave me was while it’s great to know a lot of people it doesn't really matter who you know if they don’t like you.

Put simply the point of my post is to always think how you handle yourself around people you don’t know. Anyone you meet at any time could be a possible contact in the future so its best that if you ever do need them as a contact that they are willing to help you. When you think about I'm sure we all know a lot of people but how many of them would actually be willing to help you should you call on them hopefully it’s all of them. But if it isn't don’t set out to gain more and more contact set out to gain more contact that will be willing to help should you ever call on them.