

Networking Inside a Large Company - smit
http://blog.smitpatel.com/how-to-network-inside-a-large-company

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alanctgardner2
The wiki page about lunch discussions, etc. was brilliant. That is the kind of
cool, outside-of-the-box thinking that gets your noticed in a large group of
people. That people wanted to be 'featured' validates the idea nicely, too.

Can we ditch the 'hustle', though? Some things, like asking the CEO to lunch,
seem like 'hustle' because they're obvious but 'hard'. This wiki page was a
very clever idea more than it was hard work, I think it kind of demonstrates
how the term has grown out of control.

As for the 'large' company, I think his definition is valid. Where I am now
we're approaching 200 employees, and it's well beyond the point where everyone
knows each other (there is a term for this limit). Even for 400 people, the
traditional 'meet at the watercooler' methods break down, and you need to
inject some innovation to meet everyone.

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aliukani
> As for the 'large' company, I think his definition is valid. Where I am now
> we're approaching 200 employees, and it's well beyond the point where
> everyone knows each other (there is a term for this limit). Even for 400
> people, the traditional 'meet at the watercooler' methods break down, and
> you need to inject some innovation to meet everyone.

Personally, I like to use Dunbar's number as a the divide between small and
large companies.

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kokey
'Large Company' is quite relative. I have just left a job at what I consider a
large company, with just under 300k employees. There it was a well known step
in your career to build your network, over several years. Unfortunately it's
hard to duplicate these steps in a really large company, since they have
policies around social media, wikis, etc.

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AndrewKemendo
Exactly my thoughts, HubSpot is just over 300 people. That's tiny.

I think these recommendations are too vague for truly large organizations like
Google, Cisco, MSFT etc...

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Domenic_S
At some value of company largeness, your group/org is the 300-person-or-less
size, and you could use the OP's tips to meet people in your own group.

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michaelochurch
Upvoted because this is an important skill in a company of any substantial
size-- even at 25 people. You should always have a sense of what kinds of
projects and work are done within the company, because most of the people
getting the best projects are there because they're the first ones to find
them.

We quip a lot about the disadvantages of large companies. There is, however,
one major advantage: transfer opportunity (even though the formal transfer
system of most companies should be a last resort; you're better off being
requested) and the chance to make contacts. However, to actually get at that,
you need to be a bit more "entrepreneurial" and self-motivated (to meet people
and ask them about what they're doing) than the typical big-company employee.

Another upshot of this is that if you do it right, people won't fuck with you
and you're very well insured against being personally fired or PIP'd. You
might be laid off if there's a huge cut, and your boss might tell you that
it's time to transfer, but personally firing someone who is well networked
within the company is so politically dangerous that most people won't fuck
with you.

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smit
you've got some great points here man. love your insight.

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passwert
Please stop using the word "hacked" for every shit you do.

