Can attending tech conferences help your career?
This morning a young man by the pseudonym Anonymous Coward posted to Slashdot asking "Is Attending a Computer Science Conference Worth the Time?"
I think his real question was is it worth the money, as he is a college student and worried about the hotel and travel expense.
Is it worth the money? Depends on the expense, who you might expect to meet and what you might expect to get out of the event.
Is it worth the time? Yes! Yes! Yes!
In-person events can almost never hurt your career. They are a rare opportunity to meet decision makers who might influence your career track and your salary. It's a chance to cement relationships and deepen bonds with the ones you've already met.
Personal connections make all the difference: Most jobs are found and most hires are made based on referrals and networking.
Some stats on the subject from Career Playbook:
The Wall Street Journal reported recently that 94 percent of successful job hunters claimed that networking had made all the difference for them.
Sixty to 90 percent of jobs are found informally - mainly through friends, relatives, and direct contacts. The U.S. Department of Labor reports that 63.4 percent of all workers use informal job finding methods.
Mark S. Granovetter, a Harvard sociologist, reported to Forbes magazine that "informal contacts" account for almost 75 percent of all successful job searches. Agencies find nine percent of new jobs for professional and technical people, and advertisements yield another 10 percent or so.
The exact numbers are unclear, but networking makes a difference and in-person connections are stronger than those made and maintained solely online.
David Guber, the successful Hollywood producer, in a profile in Sunday's New York Times, that he succeeded, when he did so at all, "by telling many purposeful stories, face-to-face, over the course of a long career."
Like a Hollywood movie, he figured out, the stories that drive professional life - the narrative that is part of pitches, résumés, introductions and every conversation about business goals and achievements - work best when they are grounded in emotion. By and large, they require a hero. Dramatic tension and even a few props help... Screens and telephone lines, he said, don't let you flesh out the story with body language, shared emotion and the occasional resort to extreme measures.
The best career advice urges job seekers to use online connections to support in-person connections and vice versa. From TheLadders Career Advice.
If you already have an online following - on your blog, Facebook, Twitter or an online discussion forum - then you can tap into those communities to start meeting people offline. This is especially useful if you're introverted and you're looking to meet with peers you know already online. By meeting people offline, you'll build a stronger network online and vice versa.
And the advice to the young man interested in attending the computer science conference? Respondents to his post overwhelmingly urged him to find the money to attend. Said one:
I am one of the decision-makers on hiring at my company, as VC-funded startup. (If you like, come interview; we're profitable and hiring)... Yes, when you're young, the cost seems high. But, relative to your future income, it is a drop in the bucket. Lost weekend, $500 flight, $300 hotel... Borrow it from a 30- or 40- something who trusts you, and pay it back over a year.
In-person networking shouldn't just apply to conferences and events that require travel. Anyone promoting their career should attempt to attend as many events as possible and to be as visible as possible, read: don't be a wallflower. Meet and greet while you're there.
Of course, do the calculus on the ROI: Will you meet people you otherwise wouldn't? Will you learn skills that will advance your career? Will you invest the charisma and effort to make it worthwhile? If the answer to any of those is no, then stay home.
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