One Reason Why Every Job Seeker Needs a Network

There are many practical benefits of an engaged network on various social media platforms during any job search. They can connect you with potential employers and help you to amplify your content. They give you feedback on your job search strategies and offer career inspiration. Every job seeker needs a network to lift them up.

That all seems sensible, but the core value of a social media tribe lies elsewhere.

They offer an emotional release.

Job seeker network reciprocation

Put in the time to support your closest contacts on social media (people often ask for help). The unspoken law of social media reciprocation will ensure that you can rely on them as an emotional outlet when the job search pressure hits.

If you are on a professional network such as LinkedIn, many of them will have been there and done it. There is a natural empathy for the job seeker on the platform. If you have 15-20 people whose posts you support and with whom you strike up regular conversations, you will be able to rely on them. They’ll offer an encouraging word when you vent (obviously in a private message) after a job rejection or job search disappointment.

When times get hard, we all need such a one-way release of emotion, but we often won’t want to burden our families or real-life friends. The social media tribe, therefore, play the ideal role of people who “listen” and immediately offer sympathy without the baggage of a more complicated relationship. Every job seeker needs a network. If you give them the same unconditional sympathy, it will be a ping-pong game of emotional release whenever one of you has any struggles.

Strangers matter

Such emotional release to a near-total stranger can be potent.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t share the big job search moments with friends and family. As your social media circle is likely to be a little bigger, you can spread the emotional load. Only sharing with those people online who you would consider a “friend” offers nearly the same emotional comfort as confiding in a friend over a drink in a bar.

The brain can be easily fooled – the rush of chemicals is almost identical.

While a social media tribe should never replace your real-life social circles, the simplicity of relationships on socials does allow for the venting of emotions with simplistic emoji led responses. A real-life friend would want to discuss your concerns for an hour or more. A social friend would send over a couple of honest lines with a carefully selected emoji or two.

Sometimes you just need to feel that someone is there for you. An emoji or two will often do when you don’t need a response to your job search frustrations. When you multiply that by 20-30 social friends from your tribe, that is a helluva lot of virtual cheerleading.

Grow your social tribe. They will offer you support one day. If you do the same for them.

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This blog is shared with Job Seeker Duetists. 

Written by former recruitment ghostwriter Paul Drury (not AI).