Networking crucial to career progression

10 questions to help you measure your networking effectiveness

Less than 25% of all vacancies are advertised, so for the vast majority of job seekers their success in finding a new role is determined by how well networked they are. Based upon the latest job vacancy figures from the Office of National Statistics(1), in February 2007 there were a whopping 465,000 job vacancies that were not advertised.

People who are good at networking have a significant advantage when it comes to taking the next step up their career ladder, as they will be able to choose from a much greater selection of job opportunities.

Networking skills can be taught and this is one of the personal development courses run by the Transition Services practice of Reed Consulting, the specialist HR consultancy and outsourced services provider.

To help individuals measure their effectiveness as networkers, Stuart Lindenfield, Head of Transition Services at Reed Consulting, has devised this simple, self-assessment networking questionnaire(2):

Confident Networking Questionnaire
Score each statement using a scale from 5 down to 1, as follows:

5 = Strongly agree
4 = Agree
3 = Neither agree or disagree
2 = Disagree
1 = Strongly disagree



Now add up your score and check out where you stand currently;

If you scored over 45, it is highly likely that you are already a super-confident networker who is able to draw upon a deep pool of contacts to help you progress your career.

If you scored between 39 and 44, you are already a good networker but donít yet have as many contacts as you could who would be able to help you unearth even more job opportunities.

If you scored 38 or less, you will miss out on a whole swathe of job opportunities unless you learn how to become a better networker.

1 Office for National Statistics (ONS) monthly on-line survey

2 The full questionnaire is published within ëConfident Networking for career success and satisfactioní, the acclaimed self-help book for developing networking skills written by respected experts Gael and Stuart Lindenfield.