If somebody were to ask me what galaxy I was from, I would probably state with a straight face that I am originally from a planet circling a remote star in the outer spiral of the pinwheel M-101 Galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major about 25 million light years from Earth. It is a family joke that I’m really an alien and someday the mother ship will come and take me home. Actually, I started this story as a response to my sister who claims that I am so strange that I must have been adopted. Sometimes when I am challenged on an idea, I will reply with “You are going to miss me when the mother ship comes!†So how would you answer this question? What galaxy are you from? The correct answer is not the Milky Way and that you are from a planet called Earth. You are a part of a much more personal networking galaxy that can be measured, mapped and fine tuned. Your network contacts are your stars and it is always helpful to know what orbits they take and where they may collide or overlap with each other.
Recruiters and sourcers have probably already mapped their network. If not, they are at least aware of the tangled interconnections between personal, professional and everything in between. Job seekers too are often told that their network is important and that it begins with family and friends. The analogy of growing your network like tree branches is good to a point, but it gets a little confusing when they overlap. How do you diagram these interconnections? Your network can contain people in your company, your industry and your profession, but each of these crosses boundaries with contacts you make socially, at conferences or at school. There actually is a tool which can be used to visualize your network called LinkedIn InMaps. The first time you do this it is startling to see two realities: Some people in your network are clustered together and overlap with others, and some are outside of the cluster in a sphere of their own. The benefit of such a dynamic tool is obviously that you can consciously add stars to your own galaxy by filling in the gaps.
Go to https://inmaps.linkedinlabs.com and map your own universe.
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