The truth is that this post is not about entrepreneurs or inventors.   If I really stretch it, maybe this post is for individuals who are looking for opportunities within startups.  It’s definitely for people who think they have spent too long working for one of the bigger systems companies and are now looking for other opportunities in faster-growing, more nimble environments.  It’s for people who were recently laid off, or who are about to be laid off. At any rate, it’s for people looking for the next career opportunity. 

Sometimes, I think I should be in the headhunter business, because I get almost daily calls from truly talented people, who for reasons that sometimes escape me are looking outside their current employer for the next career opportunity.  I guess the reason that I’m not in the headhunter business is that I don’t have as many companies coming to me with good jobs to fill as I do good people coming to me looking for jobs.  Maybe the Tycoon widget from Myndnet, that I added to my Facebook profile will help change that, but I’m not sure yet.  Check it out.

I got another email today asking for help, and I thought it might be helpful to share with you some of my response.  By the way, I’ll do whatever I can to help this person, but there’s a lot she can do to help me help her.  Here’s what I wrote:

You can help me help you if you do these things:

  1. Accept my connection request on LinkedIn
  2. Build out your own LinkedIn network
  3. Accept my connection request on Plaxo
  4. Let me know who your top three internal advocates are at your company
  5. Let me know who your top three external advocates are from your years at your company
  6. Let me know which people internally and externally might NOT be an advocate for you and why (we could do that by phone).

There are few things that you can do that will have a more positive impact on your career than building out your network.  That network will help others within your network help you even more.  But, it’s also important to gain an honest assessment of what others are saying about you.   And it’s the best way for me to help you.  After suffering years of back biting and in-fighting that occurs in some corporations, it’s easy to see how some people begin to suffer from paranoia.  Just as troublesome, however, is pronoia, the delusion that people are saying good things about you behind your back.