How to Build a Network: Honest Answers to the Questions That Hold You Back

If “networking” makes you picture a room full of strangers and a stack of business cards, you can set that picture aside. To build a network, start with the people you already know — classmates, teachers, colleagues, former managers — and strengthen those relationships before you need them. Add new people one at a time, with a genuine reason to talk, give help as often as you ask for it, and keep in touch in small, regular ways.

That is simpler to say than to do. The hard part is rarely knowing what to do; it’s getting past the awkwardness of actually doing it. The questions below take each piece in turn, starting with the one that stops most people before they begin.

How do I build a network if I don’t know anyone?

You almost certainly know more people than you think. You just don’t count them. For most students and recent graduates, a network starts with the people closest to hand: fellow students, teachers in the fields that interest you, family members, and the managers and coworkers from part-time jobs, internships or summer work. University of Colorado Boulder’s career services treats this as the natural starting point, and adds a reason not to wait: building a network takes time, so the earlier you begin, the more practice you get and the more opportunities have time to find you.

The people you barely know count too. Sociologist Mark Granovetter’s 1973 study “The Strength of Weak Ties” found that casual acquaintances were more often helpful in finding work than close friends and family. The reason is overlap. Your closest friends mostly know the same people and hear the same news you do, while an acquaintance moves in circles you don’t, and brings information you would never otherwise hear. The classmate you did one group project with, or the colleague from another department you chat with while the coffee brews, is already part of your network.

So the first step is quiet and private: write down everyone you could reasonably send a message to, without judging whether they seem “useful.” That list is your network. Everything else in this article is about growing and tending it.

Who should I actually be networking with?

Not just the most senior or impressive people you can find. A large study of job moves on LinkedIn, reported by Stanford in 2023, found that the link between how close a connection is and how much it helps with a job move follows an inverted U: the biggest benefit came from moderately weak ties — people with whom someone shared around ten mutual connections — rather than from the closest contacts or from near-strangers. In practice, your most valuable connections are often one or two steps away: a friend’s former colleague, an alum from your program, someone you met once through work.

Beyond that, aim for range. Include colleagues in your own organization, people from your education and past jobs, professional contacts outside your workplace, and people who differ from you in background, field or seniority. Connect both up and down the hierarchy. Peers who are starting out at the same time as you often become the most lasting relationships, because your careers grow side by side. Save cold outreach to strangers for when you have a concrete reason to contact that particular person.

And don’t overlook the people you already see every day. If eating lunch at your desk feels like the efficient choice, consider how it looked from the other side. One of the young people we interviewed about starting work told us:

It’s in the lunch breaks that colleagues find out what I actually find interesting — and that’s where they go, ‘maybe you should try this project.’ Another intern ate at his desk and never joined anything social, and I think I automatically got the more interesting tasks. Not because I said anything at work, but because people got to know me outside it.

That is her experience, not a rule about who gets ahead. But it shows how much of a network forms in ordinary, unplanned moments with the people around you.

Is it weird to message someone I haven’t talked to in years?

It’s less weird than it feels, and often more useful than contacting someone you see every week. In a 2011 paper in Organization Science, researchers Daniel Levin, Jorge Walter and Keith Murnighan studied “dormant ties” — relationships that were once active but have gone quiet — and found real value in reconnecting. The gap itself is what makes it work: while you were out of touch, the other person picked up knowledge, experience and contacts you don’t share, so reconnecting tends to bring fresher information than talking to someone whose news you already know.

Keep the message simple and honest. Say who you are, where you know each other from, and why you’re getting in touch now. You don’t need to apologize at length for the silence or invent an elaborate pretext; a genuine reason, like having just started in a field they work in, is enough.

How do I reach out to someone I don’t know without it being awkward?

Make the request small, specific and easy to say yes to. A good first message, by email or on LinkedIn, says briefly who you are and why you’re contacting this person in particular, then asks for a short conversation with a clear length and time frame, such as twenty minutes sometime in the next few weeks. University of Colorado Boulder’s career services recommends setting expectations like this up front. A bounded request is easier to accept than an open-ended “Can we connect?”, which leaves the other person guessing what you want and how much of their time it will take.

Put your main point early, keep the message brief, and make your reason real: a question about their work, a shared background, something they said or wrote that stayed with you. If you don’t hear back, one polite follow-up is fine. After that, let it go without taking it personally. Busy people miss messages all the time.

What do I say at a networking event?

Less than you might fear. Most of a good conversation is listening, and preparation helps far more than a script. Before the event, look at the attendee or speaker list, pick three or four people you’d like to meet, and note a couple of things you could ask or talk about with each. University of Colorado Boulder’s career services suggests exactly this, and it turns a daunting room into a short list of specific conversations.

Choose events where people already share some context with you: conferences and panel discussions in your field, professional associations, and alumni groups from your school. Shared context makes a conversation easier to start and gives you a natural reason to follow up afterward.

Once you’re talking, ask questions and actually listen to the answers. Keep your own turns fairly short, and don’t try to tell your whole story in one go. Then follow up within a day with a personal touch, such as a reference to something you talked about, so the connection doesn’t end at the door.

How do I network without feeling fake or like I’m using people?

By giving as often as you ask. Networking is a two-way exchange, and the fear of “using people” usually comes from picturing only the asking half. When only one side ever asks, the relationship tends to go quiet. When both sides help each other, it keeps going.

You have more to offer than you might assume, even early in your career. Pass on an article or a job opening someone would care about. Introduce two people who ought to know each other. Share something you’re good at, like a tool or a method you picked up in your studies that more experienced colleagues haven’t met yet. Listen well when someone talks through a problem, and notice and celebrate other people’s wins. If you’re unsure what you bring to the table, finding out where your strengths lie gives you something concrete to offer, and these are skills you can keep building.

Timing matters too. A network built only when you urgently need a job feels transactional, to you and to everyone you contact. One built earlier, while nothing is at stake, doesn’t.

Does LinkedIn count as networking?

It’s a useful tool, but it isn’t the network itself. LinkedIn is good for finding people, asking for introductions, keeping track of where former classmates and colleagues have gone, and joining groups in your field. What it can’t do on its own is build trust. A connection request that is accepted and never followed up is a name in a list, not a relationship. Use the platform to start and maintain contact, and build the relationship itself through real conversation: a call, a coffee, a chat after an event.

How do I keep in touch with people once I’ve met them?

Think in circles. Your inner circle is the handful of people who matter most to your work right now; keep in regular, active contact with them. Your middle circle is people with whom you’ve built some trust and who would respond if you asked for something; a message every few months keeps that alive. Your outer circle is dormant connections, people you’ve drifted from but could still reach, and as the research on dormant ties suggests, they’re worth reactivating when there’s a reason.

Keeping in touch doesn’t require grand gestures. Congratulate someone on a new role, send along something relevant, ask how a project turned out. Small, regular contact beats a burst of activity when you suddenly need something, and the relationships that help most in a job search are usually the ones that already existed when the search began.

Across all of these answers runs the same thread: a network grows through many small, deliberate moves — a message sent, a question asked, a follow-up the next day — rather than one big effort. And each of those moves draws on something you can practice.

The skills that make building a network feel natural

Look closely at what separates the people whose networks keep growing from those whose contact lists sit still. It usually isn’t charisma or who their parents know. It’s a handful of habits that tend to show up together.

Networking is the one closest to the surface, and it works best when you treat it as personal connection rather than an exchange of favors. It means building relationships before you need them, knowing which ones sit in your inner, middle and outer circles, and deliberately adding new people instead of always talking to the same ones. The measure isn’t how many contacts you have; it’s how many people would be glad to hear from you.

Building Confidence is what gets the first message sent. Confidence here doesn’t come from waiting until you feel ready. It comes from small steps taken in order, such as writing to a former classmate before approaching a stranger, and from accepting that it will feel uncomfortable for a while. Deciding in advance exactly when you’ll send that message, and to whom, does more than any pep talk.

Communication is what turns a first contact into a relationship. A genuine desire to understand the other person, real listening, keeping your own turns short, and stating your point clearly in a brief message all make people want to keep talking to you. None of it calls for a polished pitch, just attention to the person in front of you.

The free Job Skills Test measures all three, along with nine other skills that shape how working life goes, so you can see which one to practice first instead of trying to fix everything at once.

What this means for you

Parts of this may already feel familiar. If you’ve ever forwarded a job ad to a friend who’d be perfect for it, or remembered to ask a colleague how their presentation went, you’ve already done what networking is built on. What’s left is doing it a bit more often, and a bit more on purpose.

None of this asks you to become more outgoing or to turn into someone else. It asks for small habits you can build in your own way and at your own pace. Relationships take time to grow, so the ones you start now are the ones you’ll have when an opportunity or a hard moment comes along, and that is a good reason to start with whichever skill will help you most.

Find your starting point

The only thing left is to choose where to begin. The Job Skills Test is a free self-assessment of your work skills. In about 7 minutes it shows where you stand across all twelve, including networking, confidence and communication, so you can see which one will make the biggest difference to the network you’re building. Take it on your own, whenever it suits you.