In-elegant networking

I received an email the other week and just had to shake my head. My email address was displayed in the “TO:” field along with about 50 other people. Some I knew, some I did not. Admit it, we’re all going to look... and there we all were for each other to see.

The email was a request to hook the sender up with introductions at a specific company where they had applied for a job (posting and resume attached).

I love to help people. But my honest reaction:

Why should I take my time to help - someone else on this massive list will help instead.

Psychologists call this “the bystander or Genovse effect” after the 1964 NY murder of Kitty Genovse, who’s attack and cries for help went on for over a half hour without any of a dozen neighbors / witnesses calling the police. The facts of the case have been distorted to illustrate that people are less likely to help when others are present than when we are alone – in a group we tend to assume someone else will help.

Why should I take my time - and impose on my contacts’ time - when on the big list I see others who might be much better connected to the desired company than me?

Why should I take my time, out of a busy workday, when the sender didn’t take the time, while currently unemployed, to send this request individually?

How would my contacts inside the company react to seeing this email forwarded? Not good. Now my investment of time to help includes stripping out all the other names… probably writing a new email… but is that false advertising for someone who sent it this way in the first place?

What is my confidence level that if I make an introduction for the sender that they would handle my contacts’ information discreetly? Would I be burning my contacts, and my reputation with them, by risking exposure of their names and email addresses in future mailings?

My eyes went back to the long list of names and email addresses revealed to all of us. Why is the sender showing us their whole contact list? Which do they want more: help, or to show everyone how well connected they are?

This is not how I would send this. It won’t reflect well on me. It takes about 10 seconds - as much as I love to help people - to decide to do nothing.

Aughhhh. I wish I could help everyone. As I open other emails, I think back to the sender - and hope they are also using other, more effective methods in their job search. People don't know what they don't know. As a client I'd coach them on how to get the best outcome: how to help others help you.

There are two ways to make one simple change that could vastly improve the chances of getting the requested introductions:

a. At minimum put your own email address in the “TO:” field and “BCC:” – blind cc – your big list of recipients.

b. If this job is that important to you, take the extra time (using copy and paste, 50 people = half hour max) to send the email to each of us individually as the only “TO:” - we would all be far more likely to help.