Another excellent networking event thanks to the Avansai boys. I don’t quite know what it is that makes for a good networking night. Maybe it’s a case that I’m previously tormented by past experiences of bad events. But perhaps the mindset is different now. The last real networking events I attended were either initially when I landed in Vancouver and was desperately trying to find a job. Or they were in Vancouver when I had a job that I wasn’t enjoying and was trying to leverage the night to find something else.
In the first, I think I ended up in the wrong place. It always would turn into small business owners trying to pimp their services - and there isn’t much wrong with that - but it all felt very transactional.
In the latter, the events were often history by some up-and-coming company that had recently come into some new money and was shamelessly using the whole event as a sales funnel and/or long interview process.
These are the first times I’ve attended networking events with no real agenda. I’m just there to have a beer or two and have a conversation with some interesting people.
I suspect that having a curated attendee list goes a long way to this. As recruiters, they are going to be meeting a lot of people and they are going to have to have a reason to keep some of those people around in social circles even if they are not actively job hunting on either side of the table.
In fact, I’d go as far as saying that it was a very enjoyable evening. Having exposure to some new perspectives and new people is always great. But sharing some laughs around past experiences and war stories starts to feel a little like group therapy.
Maybe that’s what I’ve been missing for a while. I don’t have a lot of some connections outside of the workplace and now with the extra job title and responsibilities I feel a certain professional difference between many. My parents have argued that perhaps that barrier is of my own invention and I should insert myself into having lunch with the new guys and building a more natural relationship with them. But with leadership comes a certain expectation of not badmouthing the company, the clients and anything else. I feel like any opinions I express, however fleeting in my mind, likely hold a lot of weight to the others.
So to anonymously compare scars with a few other industry veterans is very cathartic.