Need Answers to Past Papers?
Get accurate answers for KCPE, KCSE, CDACC, KPSEA, KNEC, Edexcel, and more exams. Contact us now for quick help!
Contact Us on WhatsAppPAY ATTENTION: JOIN US ON WHATSAPP TO ACCESS RECENT PASTPAPERS & NOTES
Every piece of career advice tells you to network. Almost none of it accounts for the fact that networking in its traditional form — rooms full of strangers exchanging business cards and talking about nothing — is a genuinely miserable experience for a significant portion of the population.
Reframe What Networking Actually Is
The version of networking that most people dread — standing in a room making conversation with strangers, working the room, collecting contacts — is one specific format of networking and not a particularly effective one. Research on how professional relationships actually form and how they actually generate career opportunities consistently shows that meaningful connections come from genuine relationship-building over time, not from transactional contact exchanges at events.
Networking is simply the process of building genuine relationships with people who work in areas that interest you. Some of those relationships will eventually be professionally useful. Many of them are just interesting human connections that make your professional life richer. Reframing it this way — as genuine relationship-building rather than strategic contact-collecting — makes it significantly more accessible for introverts because it describes something introverts are often genuinely good at when not forced into an extroverted performance format.
Introverts typically form deeper relationships with fewer people rather than many surface relationships with many people. This is actually a networking advantage in the long run. A handful of strong genuine professional relationships consistently produces more career value than a large collection of weak ones. The introvert’s natural tendency toward depth over breadth aligns well with how professional relationships actually produce value.
Online Networking Works Better for Introverts
Written, asynchronous communication removes the real-time social performance pressure that makes in-person networking exhausting for introverts. LinkedIn in particular gives you the ability to present yourself thoughtfully, research people before contacting them, and initiate contact in a format that does not require immediate real-time response from either party.
A well-crafted LinkedIn connection request that references something specific about the person’s work or background — not the default ‘I’d like to add you to my professional network’ — has a high acceptance rate and starts the connection on a genuine basis. Follow people whose work you find interesting and engage with their content by leaving thoughtful comments. Over time this creates familiarity that makes a more direct outreach feel natural rather than cold.
Online professional communities — industry-specific forums, Discord servers, subreddits, LinkedIn groups — allow for relationship building through shared interest and genuine contribution rather than social performance. Consistently contributing useful insights or perspectives to a community where your target professionals are active builds reputation and relationships simultaneously without requiring you to perform extroversion.
Use Informational Interviews Instead of Events
An informational interview is a one-on-one conversation with someone whose work you find interesting, requested explicitly for the purpose of learning about their career and field. It is not a job interview. It is not asking for anything except 20 to 30 minutes of someone’s time and perspective.
For introverts, informational interviews are a far more natural networking format than events. One person, a structured conversational purpose, preparation possible in advance, and the ability to engage in the depth of conversation that introverts typically find energizing rather than the surface-level exchange that drains them. The format plays to introvert strengths rather than requiring an extroverted performance.
Most working professionals respond positively to a genuine, specific informational interview request from a student. The request that works is specific about who you are, why you are reaching out to them in particular, what you would like to discuss, and how much time you are asking for. Vague requests — ‘I would love to pick your brain sometime’ — get vague responses. ‘I am a second-year economics student interested in behavioural finance and I came across your work on consumer decision-making in the Journal of Consumer Research. Would you be open to a 20-minute conversation about how you moved from academia into consulting?’ gets a yes.
Follow Up Genuinely
The difference between a contact and a connection is follow-up. Most students make the mistake of treating networking as a one-time interaction — go to the event, meet someone interesting, exchange details, done. The relationship does not exist yet at that point. It begins to exist in the follow-up.
After any meaningful conversation with someone in your field — an informational interview, a chance meeting at a campus event, an email exchange — follow up within 48 hours. Reference something specific from your conversation. If you said you would look something up or read something they mentioned, do it and report back. If something they mentioned connects to something you read later, share it with a brief note. These low-effort follow-ups maintain a connection that would otherwise simply fade.
The goal over time is a small number of genuine professional relationships where both parties have some sense of who the other is and some authentic interest in each other’s work. This network, built gradually through consistent genuine follow-up, is significantly more valuable than a large list of people who barely remember meeting you.
When You Have to Attend Events
Sometimes events are unavoidable — career fairs, department networking evenings, alumni events that could produce genuine value. For these situations, a few specific strategies make the experience more manageable for introverts without requiring you to perform extroversion convincingly.
Set a specific goal before you arrive — one or two substantive conversations rather than meeting as many people as possible. This gives you a concrete achievable target and removes the diffuse pressure of feeling like you should be working the entire room. Research attendees in advance where possible so you can initiate with something specific rather than a generic opening. Give yourself explicit permission to leave when you have met your goal — you do not owe anyone a performance of social ease beyond that. Debrief with yourself afterward about what worked and what connections are worth following up — the follow-up is where the value of in-person networking is actually captured.
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Can’t find what you’re looking for? Contact us
