Connecting Means Opening the Doors

You know as well as I do that there are people in our community looking for a job. The reasons for this stem from many different situations. For freelancers and small business owners, in reality, they are always looking for a job in another sense. Depending on how things are going, it reflects on their need to find that next client.

Now, I’m not leading into some episode where I am going to give you tips on looking for a job or insights on best practices. I’m really not qualified for that. I have been working for myself since the late 1980s, with a few jobs here and there during those early years of surviving. I probably know as much as many of you do.

And again, I could mention all the resources where you might find work. Michelle Freschette generously curates job openings on her X profile every Wednesday. Marcus, one of our hosts, lists those who are looking for work over on thewp.world. Not to mention sites like Post Status and others that list jobs.

The reason I bring this up is that, as I do every day, several times, I visit LinkedIn and typically find a message from someone asking me if I am hiring. Now I get it on both sides. Often, this is unsolicited and can be annoying. On the other hand, there are those that just need work. Their abrupt intrusion, which you may describe as random, often sounds that way. True. But we do have to understand that in some cases it’s cultural, and in other cases, it’s just the fact that they have little experience in finding a job in what we may describe as the professional or correct way.

So, there are a couple of things here. First, they do have to connect or at least ask to connect with you to do this, unless they have a premium account, which likely they won’t be doing. That first connection may be as abrupt as a short intro asking if you are hiring, or a bit more extended by first asking to connect and then following up with something like, “Hi Bob, how are you doing?” which may then lead into the job pitch.

What do I personally do? I like to connect with people, and most of them are potential listeners to the podcast. So I connect a lot unless the invite to connect includes some kind of weird pitch, be it a job, services they offer, or anything like that. When they immediately come back with the pitch, well, sometimes I ignore it, or other times I reply with a polite reason why I am not interested.

You may think I am crazy and spending way too much time doing that. Well, let me explain a couple of things about me.

First, the ripple effect or the “you never know” effect. Each connection, no matter how it starts, can lead to something else. Maybe you think the odds are against it, but it happens. I have experienced that myself. Maybe they do become a listener. Or read one of my posts that inspires them. Or they could tell a friend or colleague about the podcast because of where their interest lies. The thing is, you never know.

Secondly, I have opened the door. I’m not sure how many of you are old enough to remember door-to-door salespeople. Those ones that you would answer the door for or quickly disappear around the corner into another room hoping they didn’t see you. But for those times you did open the door, there was the invite. The chance for them to introduce themselves and give their pitch. How that moment evolved varied. But the fact is, you did invite them in. So when you connect with someone on LinkedIn, you are doing the same thing. Sure, it’s not what you may have expected or wanted, but you opened the door.

So that’s it. I’m not suggesting you follow my line of reasoning or even that you have the same goals as me when it comes to a platform like LinkedIn. All I want to do is to remind you that you opened the door.