The benefits of professional networking are backed by research, anecdote, and career coaches galore—and yet a lot of people shy away from it. A global survey of nearly 16,000 LinkedIn users revealed that while nearly 80 percent of professionals consider networking crucial to career success, almost 40 percent admit that they find it hard to do.
So who networks and who doesn’t? One might assume that networking is largely the domain of those who have lower social status who are early in their careers. After all, the benefits of a larger network are especially important as you’re establishing yourself.
But a lot of research suggests that this isn’t the case—that higher-status individuals have larger social networks.
Indeed, seasoned professionals seem to be the ones most actively reaching out to their networks for favors, comfortably working meet-and-greet events and seeking out new connections. This was a tendency observed by the late Ned Smith, who was an associate professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School, and coauthor Jiyin Cao, an associate professor of management in Stony Brook University’s College of Business.
“We sensed this disconnect between who actually needs to be doing the networking behavior the most, and who is actually doing the networking behavior the most,” says Cao, who earned her PhD from Kellogg.
In a new paper, Cao and Smith explored just why this is the case. They confirmed that people with higher status do have larger social networks and tend to be more likely to do things to broaden those networks further, such as seek advice from an acquaintance. Critically, they found that these differences between low- and high-status individuals were largely driven by whether individuals viewed status to be an indicator of someone’s quality. When people attributed their high status to their own talent and hard work, they were particularly eager to network: they were confident they had value to offer and that others would be receptive to their outreach.