CONTRIBUTED BY
Karolina, ExpertHub Team
DATE
24 mar 2025
The job market has one outstanding paradoxical feature. While it is increasingly fast-paced and competitive, much emphasis is still put on the power of meaningful connections within industries and with one’s professional peers. And it is not just ‘knowing people’ that matters. Branded as engaging in healthy competition, we strive to outgrow our colleagues while (and by any means, through) maintaining support-based collaboration.
Mutual benefits
Such collaboration needs to remain mutually beneficial. The networking specialists warn: don’t exploit your connections exclusively for your benefit, keeping them shallow and self-interested. Rather, create and uphold a dialogue that will strengthen both sides. Even if you are content with your position, you should maintain the quality of your professional relationships, give as much as you take, and invest time in your professional social media profiles. But why?
Even though it may initially sound like additional work, forming relationships with fellow professionals is among the needs of working humans. It makes work more interesting, provides broader perspectives, inspires ideas, fosters collaboration, enhances problem-solving, builds a supportive network, opens up career opportunities, boosts motivation, and creates a sense of belonging in the workplace. Other people, even though sometimes “hell” in Sartre’s terms, enhance our chances, the quality of our work, and the long-term enjoyment of it.
Pitfalls of classic networking
Not everyone is suited for or eager to engage in the wearying networking efforts, and not everyone can do that easily, for example, due to the nature of their work. Many have become fed up with the term “networking” itself–admittedly blurred and often charged with negative associations such as awkwardness, tediousness, or excessive flattery.
On top of that, networking is not necessarily always a well-facilitated process. First of all, it happens majorly through the autonomous efforts of individuals. And second of all, if someone eventually attempts to bring people together to network, it is often done without the appropriate tools and no methodology whatsoever. After all, what are we really supposed to do after hearing the command “now network”?
A neat alternative
There is a more profound alternative, which also contributes to the sense of belonging, supports one’s professional development, offers peer support avenues, and utilizes the social perks of peer-expert exchange, namely joining a professional community. But hey! Isn’t that just another form of networking?
It is more than that. Finding a thriving community of like-minded professionals is not like any other networking. It offers a more structured and stable framework for collaboration, exchange, learning, and socializing. By joining a community revolving around a common professional interest, product, or service, one immediately becomes part of an organic network with a shared ground. And once one becomes an active member, the blurred and unclear term of “networking” is replaced by something more transparent, specific, and goal-oriented, namely, building community together.
Another reason why joining and building the community is more than networking is that it is not merely a process of encountering fellow professionals, but it focuses on bringing this encounter to further levels - union, collaboration, exchange, learning, and fun. In the upcoming articles, we will explore our thoughts on the perks of community building within the ICT sector and dive deeper into the community vision of ExpertHub!
