Social networking: Vital ingredient of career success

By Dr. Adebayo Oluwole, Department of Guidance & Counselling, University of Ibadan

Dr. Adebayo OluwoleJames Allen said, “He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much; he who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly.” This strongly contradicts the opinion of most Nigerians, both employed and unemployed, that always pray for huge monetary gain from little job. There are several steps one has to take to get the type of career breakthrough one desires. One of this is social networking.

The Nigerian economic condition include circumstances of poverty and inequality, declining growth, unemployment, high inflation and low demand for labour, as well as stifled growth in unit labour costs (Finnemore, 1999).

Moreover, many studies indicated that most Nigerians made poor vocational decisions because of unrealistic vocational aspirations. It had been reported that people select occupations mainly because of the salaries, positions, glamour and prestige attached to them (Ikeme, 1991; Salami, 1997). For instance, most young people prefer medicine, engineering, laws, banking, architecture, and pharmacy as professions they intend to enter into upon graduation from school without adequate knowledge of what it takes to succeed and achieve in those occupations (Ekoja and Egbochuku, 1999; Ogunsanwo, 2000; Salami, 2000).

In support of the above findings, Okafor (2004) in a recent study found that most secondary school students selected Law, Medicine, Accountancy, Engineering, Business Administration, Teaching, Nursing, Secretarial work and Military service in that order. On the factors responsible for the students’ choice of those careers, 80 per cent of the students cited material gains in terms of salaries and emoluments; parental pressure, 60, per cent; peer groups, 50 per cent; interest, 50 per cent; career information, 45 per cent; prestige, 40 per cent; relatives and others, 30 per cent. The problems of making unrealistic occupational choices and subsequent maladjustment on the job have been identified largely among the people already in the labour force by policy maker (Ogunsanwo, 2000). Despite the activities of the guidance counsellors posted to the secondary schools by both the Federal and state governments in Nigeria, to carry out vocational, educational and personal-social counselling, most secondary school students were usually not vocationally mature by the time they leave school (Salami, 2004, 2007).

There are evidences that most of the students leaving schools quite deficient in occupational information (Ekoja & Egbochuku, 1999; Ikeme, 1991; Onyejiaku, 1985).

This had been attributed to a conspicuous absence of careers education either at the elementary or the secondary school level. This omission of careers education or career preparation such as technical preparation and apprenticeship programmes in the school curriculum limits the occupational experience of the youth. Related to this is the fact that students rarely go on field trip for career exploration. There are no career conferences or observational learning which would expose students to different kinds of work and situations that could aid students in their choice of occupations. Rather, choice of occupation is determined by students’ best school subject which is in no way an index of maturity in terms of vocational development (Onyejiaku, 1985; Salami, 2005, 2007). This is why this article is much more relevant at this material time.

The following quotation exemplifies a philosophy of the contemporary person in the face of the changing world: “The protean self emerges from confusion, from the widespread feeling that we are losing our psychological moorings ... We change ideas and partners frequently, and do the same with jobs and places of residence ... But rather than collapse under these threats and pulls, the self turns out to be surprisingly resilient (Lifton, 1992, p. 1). This philosophy of the protean self advocates the idea that the contemporary self is fluid or palpable, has functional wisdom and aspires to a minimalist form, which may be contrasted to fundamentalism. It reflects the instability of history and nations, and feelings of disconnectedness with any roots or moral grounds. In order to function in the changing world, the contemporary adult attempts to achieve balance among diverse life circumstances, and to establish intimate bonds with people.

Proteanism should therefore not be likened to fragmentation and chaos, but rather resonates the idea of adaptability that is required (Lifton, 1992).

In “Jobshift” Bridges (1995) ascribes these current challenges in the workplace to the disappearance of jobs, as well as a change in the nature of jobs, due to modern technologies and the strategies used by organisations to cope with change. These job shifts are characterised by new rules of work that emphasise the temporariness of employment and the need of every worker to commit to career-long self-development.

Every worker has to develop attitudes such as employability, vendor-mindedness as opposed to loyalty, and resiliency, as well as strategies, attitudes and abilities to reinvent work life. Bridges (1999) describes the new world of work as one in which jobs are often lost, are temporary and localised. It is a scenario of doing, rather than having jobs, or creating rather than getting jobs. The abilities and attitudes required to reinvent one’s work life include firstly the ability to see potential work situations as a market, and co-workers and superiors as customers. Also, in order to promote oneself in this market the adult needs to turn personal desires, abilities, temperament and assets into a desired product (Bridges, 1995).

This shift from the organisational career to the protean or transitory career is also described in “The career is dead: Long live the career” (Hall, 1996). Strategies required by the worker include career decision-making, a search for self-fulfilment, life-long learning, continuous adaptability, and a balance between personal and work life (Hall & Mirvis, 1995a). Discussing the new career contract, Hall and Mirvis (1995b) indicate that the elimination of jobs through restructuring and re-engineering has necessitated the use of overtime work and contingent staffing. The protean career replaces the organisational career. Protean careers are self-managed careers and aimed at self-fulfilment. Such careers are evaluated in terms of psychological, not external success. In as far as midcareer is concerned, the protean career necessitates two competencies on behalf of the adult worker, namely identity and adaptability, which entail continued self-assessment and lifelong learning.

Hansen (1996) reiterates this notion of “Integrative Life Planning”. The new paradigm of work requires the worker to perform six critical tasks: (a) work must be found that suits the change in the global context; (b) adults should integrate their lives into a meaningful whole, realising the effects of various facets of life on each other, such as the effect of family life or community on work, and vice versa; © family and work should be connected; (d) pluralism, inclusivity and diversity in the workplace must be accepted; (e) spirituality, life purpose and shared values must be seen as significant; and (f) change should be managed, and life choices, and transitions understood in a societal context. Within this paradigm, career adjustment no longer requires the worker to match a job, but instead to create an integrated life.

Koonce (1994) identified the successful habits in the modern workplace as strategies of mastering change, lifelong learning, reinvention of the self-concept, and generating of own job options, amongst others. According to Kotter (1995) success in work environments requires new strategies and unconventional career paths. Workers need to be fast-moving and competitive and embrace lifelong learning if they are to be successful in contemporary work environments. Stolz-Loike’s (1996) review of career development literature of 1995 indicate the need for career self-management and skill development. Quoting Feller (1995) she identifies the following factors of modern career success: more comprehensive skills, educational credentials and lifelong learning, flexibility and adaptability, problem-solving skills, as well as the ability to plan one’s career.

Fourie and Van Vuuren (1998) contrast the traditional and new career paradigms. In the contemporary career, career development is cyclical and lateral with continually more unstable and discontinuous career paths. Hence adults advance not through different occupational levels, but by mastering new tasks and skills. Success is found in the marketability of one’s skills. Career identity lies in personal skill development and abilities, rather than in affiliation with a specific company. Adult workers now find job security only in their own employability and need to rely on themselves for career development. Thus adults’ career moves are not linear, but adults need to move among different organisations and within one organisation through job rotation. Therefore the exchange between worker and organisation is merely transactional, according to which adults are compensated for their skills, and not based on a relational psychological contract.

According to Fourie and Van Vuuren (1998), these changes in the world of work encompass three areas, namely changes in jobs, workplace design and structure, and the people in the work environment. In sum, there is continuous job loss through organisational change, career opportunities now belong to small entities, temporary and contractual work are gaining significance, and home offices are becoming popular.

Moreover, organisations have flatter structures, and small businesses, job shifting, team-work and outsourcing of work are commonplace. In as far as people are concerned, the workforce demographics are changing, the emphasis is on intelligence, rather than on physical labour, and the need for continuous learning has resulted in multi-specialist workers.

These examples, taken from contemporary literature demonstrate the new perspectives on work and illustrate the challenges that workers face in terms of career adjustment in a rapidly changing world of work. The current need for an understanding of adult social networking is therefore apparent.

Career can be defined as a job or profession for which one undergoes training over a period of time, and which one intends to follow for the whole of one’s life (Oluwole & Popoola, 2007) Many important career decisions, such as whether to attend college or a trade school or enter the job force directly after high school are made during adolescence. These early decisions affect the rest of a person’s life; therefore, it is important to understand the individual and social factors that play into the process of individual career development (Hensley, 2007). Self-help books designed for people are filled with personality/career matching quizzes and advice for every personality type on how to get ahead in the business world. This expose is aimed at clarifying the concept of social networking as a facilitator of career success.

The world of work is a complex and dynamic one. From the world of business, it is very true that people who achieve success are those who engage in planning, identifying specific goals, and designing strategies to work toward them (Peters & Waterman, 1982). Many people do not know that they are in charge of whatever they plan for themselves.

To reach goals they have set, individuals can benefit from learning a variety of problem-solving strategies. Research (Perkins, 1992; Pressley, 1992) indicates that there are many strategies that all of us as learners can use while engaged in thinking through complex problems: (1) talking ourselves through problems; (2) asking what we know and need to find out; (3) posing questions; (4) visualizing relationships with existing knowledge; and (5) drawing our own conclusions. The importance of identifying the nature of the problem and planning strategies to solve it is emphasized by Sternberg (1985) who notes, "Better reasoners tend to spend more time encoding the terms of a problem than do poorer reasoners".

Here are certain myths or misconceptions people do habour about themselves and their career future:
• “I have nobody to link me up”
• “At my age, no company can employ me,
• “I don't have enough time to spend on career planning right now”
• “I should start looking for an occupation that is in high demand right now”
• “I will only have one career in my lifetime”
• “It’s too late to change my career”
• ‘Age is not on my side to do anything worthwhile or significant’
• ‘With money, all my career problems would be solved’
• ‘God will in His own way connect me, I don’t need to do anything’

It has been observed that the relational approach to careers suggest that people will be responsible for their own careers and can use various relationships to share information and acquire information from others about various job and career opportunities (Sutton, 2006). Also, research related to the relational approach of careers helps provide insight into an individual’s entire social environment (Hall, 1996).

One common example of the study of relationships and career development, is that of the mentoring relationship. Mentoring serves two functions including providing support for career development (which contributes to the mentee’s advancement in the organization; and “psychosocial support” which contributes to the mentee’s personal and professional growth (Kidd et al., 2003). Mentoring has been linked to many career outcomes including, enhanced career development, career progress, higher rates of promotion, and career satisfaction (Higgins and Kram, 2001).

Networking enables employees to effectively manage their career because as suggested by Burt (1992), networks provide employees with at least two advantages. First, employees whom are embedded in networks have access to information and people. In addition, networks offer employees “just-in-time” information. Stated differently, Burt (1992) suggests, “Timing is a significant feature of information received by networks. Beyond making sure that you are well informed, personal contacts can make sure you are one of the people that is informed early. Therefore, personal contacts get your name mentioned at the right time in the right place so that opportunities are presented to you”.

Measures of social network behaviour
According to Wasserman, Stanley, & Faust, Katherine (1994), there are several indices of measuring social networking behaviour. These are:

Betweenness
Degree an individual lies between other individuals in the network; the extent to which a node is directly connected only to those other nodes that are not directly connected to each other; an intermediary; liaisons; bridges. Therefore, it's the number of people who a person is connected to indirectly through their direct links.

Closeness
The degree an individual is near all other individuals in a network (directly or indirectly). It reflects the ability to access information through the "grapevine" of network members. Thus, closeness is the inverse of the sum of the shortest distances between each individual and every other person in the network.

(Degree) centrality
The count of the number of ties to other actors in the network. See also degree (graph theory).

Flow betweenness centrality
The degree that a node contributes to sum of maximum flow between all pairs of nodes (not that node).

Eigenvector centrality
a measure of the importance of a node in a network. It assigns relative scores to all nodes in the network based on the principle that connections to nodes having a high score contribute more to the score of the node in question.

Centralisation
The difference between the number of links for each node divided by maximum possible sum of differences. A centralized network will have many of its links dispersed around one or a few nodes, while a decentralized network is one in which there is little variation between the n of links each node possesses

Clustering coefficient
A measure of the likelihood that two associates of a node are associates themselves. A higher clustering coefficient indicates a greater 'cliquishness'.

Cohesion
The degree to which actors are connected directly to each other by cohesive bonds.

Groups are identified as ‘cliques’ if every actor is directly tied to every other actor, ‘social circles’ if there is less stringency of direct contact, which is imprecise, or as structurally cohesive blocks if precision is wanted.

(Individual-level) density
the degree a respondent's ties know one another/ proportion of ties among an individual's nominees. Network or global-level density is the proportion of ties in a network relative to the total number possible (sparse versus dense networks).

Path Length
The distances between pairs of nodes in the network. Average path-length is the average of these distances between all pairs of nodes.

Radiality
Degree an individual’s network reaches out into the network and provides novel information and influence

Reach
The degree any member of a network can reach other members of the network.

Structural cohesion
The minimum number of members who, if removed from a group, would disconnect the group.[10]

Structural equivalence
Refers to the extent to which actors have a common set of linkages to other actors in the system. The actors don’t need to have any ties to each other to be structurally equivalent.

Structural hole
Static holes that can be strategically filled by connecting one or more links to link together other points. Linked to ideas of social capital: if you link to two people who are not linked you can control their communication.

In essence, most organizations tend to rely on the employees within to recommend some other prospective applicants. This is so because, it seems a loyal and industrious worker may suggest somebody like himself/herself to the management. Granovetter’s (1973) weak tie theory argues that individuals should maximize the number of non-redundant ties within their network, as this will lead to the individual learning more information about future job and career opportunities.

Networking or informal interactions remain important because this is often described as one strategy women can use to break through the glass ceiling (Forret & Dougherty, 2004). However, research suggests that women are often challenged by exclusion from or limited access to informal dialogues which occur within organisational networks.

Similar to the relational perspective of career development, social capital is described as the investment in social relations with expected return (Lin, 2001, Sutton, 2006). Social capital is suggested to provide a return on relationships for the following reasons: (1) social capital facilitates the flow of information, specifically, social ties located in certain strategic locations and/or hierarchical positions can provide an individual with useful information about opportunities and choices which otherwise may not available, (2) social capital often exerts influence on the agents (e.g. recruiters or supervisors of the organization) who play a critical role in decisions (e.g. hiring or promotion) involving the actor, (3) perceptually, an individual’s social capital can be viewed as their social credentials or an indication of whom supports the individual within (and across) organisations, that is, an indicator of their “network”, and, (4) social capital reinforces identity and recognition, that is, it makes a member feel like they are part of the organisation and reinforces their efforts will be recognised by others within the organization (Lin, 2001).