Networking is asking for a favour in a blazer

The advice after the advice

When the degree didn't work and the applications didn't work, people told me the real secret. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Get out there. Network.

So I went to the mixers. Name tag, warm drink, a lot of people nodding at each other and scanning the room for someone more useful.

Nobody there was looking for me. Everyone there was looking for the same thing I was.

A queue with snacks

Networking gets sold as building relationships. Mostly it's a queue for a few doors, with snacks. Fifty people who need something circling the three people who can give it.

If jobs are scarce, knowing someone doesn't create a job. It just decides who gets the one that already existed. Somebody else loses it quietly, and they were probably just as good.

Credentials stopped being enough

The whole point of credentials was that you didn't need to know anyone. You did the course, you passed the test, the paper spoke for you. That was the deal.

Now the paper is just the entry ticket, and the actual decision happens over coffee. Which means the people who already had connections, parents in the field, the right school friends, get to skip the line again.

We spent decades selling education as the fair route. Then we quietly put the old route back on top of it.

What it costs

It costs money. Events, clothes, transit, the drinks you buy so you don't look like you're only there to ask for something, even though you are.

It costs dignity too. Smiling at someone who decides whether you get to pay rent is a weird way to spend an evening. You can feel the whole room doing math on each other.

Surplus people

Here's the uncomfortable part. When there are more people than work, every route to a job turns into a contest. Applications, credentials, networking, it doesn't matter which. The number of chairs stays the same.

Telling each person to network harder is like telling everyone at a concert to stand on their toes. It works for one person. When everyone does it, nobody sees better and everyone's feet hurt.

A floor instead of a favour

This is why UBI, neetbux, a basic floor, whatever you call it, feels more honest to me than another round of coffee chats. If there isn't enough work for everyone, survival shouldn't depend on who returns your email.

With a floor, networking goes back to being what it should be. Meeting people because they're interesting. Working on something together because you want to. Not auditioning for the right to eat.

Meanwhile

If you've been doing the name tag thing and it's draining you, you're not bad at people. The game has too many players. And if you want a little on the side without small talk, the AI you already pay for can claim paid micro-tasks for sats on neetbros.

I still talk to people. I just stopped calling it networking. Now it's just talking, which is a lot cheaper and a lot nicer.