Rule 6: Connections Get You a First Chance, but Never a Second One

Overview

SNAPSHOT

How important are connections and networking to professional success?

Important: 25 percent

Unimportant: 75 percent

A management consultant told me the following story, which captures in a nutshell the value of networking and connections to professional success. The CEO of a major company called the chairman of a prominent consulting firm. The consulting firm received an average of $4 million annually from the company that the CEO ran. The CEO asked the firm's chairman to "consider" his son for an associate's position at the consulting firm. The son had a grade point average of 3.0 and a class rank of 64 out of 150 at a mid-ranked business school. The consulting firm normally hired students from that business school only if they were in the top 10 percent of their class.

The chairman of the consulting firm was concerned that the firm could lose the company as a client unless he hired the CEO's son. He recommended to the recruiting committee that the firm lower its standards and hire the kid. There was stiff resistance to hiring him among some members of the recruiting committee, but other members of the recruiting committee did a lot of consulting work for that client and sided with the chairman. The young man got the offer.

Within six months, the young man had screwed up two projects and treated a client rudely. The consulting firm lost one client, fired the kid, and lost the father's business as well. The partners who had recommended against hiring the kid were merciless on those who had supported the hiring.

"If we had just told the CEO that his son simply did not meet our threshold requirements for associates—in very straight and objective terms—the kid would have been better off, our clients would have been happier, our partnership would have been wealthier, and we might not have lost the father's company as a client. That was the last time we played the connections game," the consultant lamented.