Network Determines Success More Than People Realize
From my personal point of view networking is everything or at least 99%.<p>I want to share my experience with you since I hold the people in this forum in high regard. Not paying attention to this &quot;social&quot; issues has deeply affected my career and now I&#x27;m at a point where there are few opportunities left for me (mainly due to age, mid 30s now). I <i>really</i> need some help now as I don&#x27;t know how to turn my life around, this is very important for me as I have a wife + daughter that expect me to be their primary provider. Any good intended advice to improve on this will be greatly appreciated.<p>I prefer to be an introvert (but I am not shy) person and do not rapidly establish strong relationships with the people around me. I am the kind of person that has 3 or 4 friends at most, goes to work, does what it needs to do without much fanfare and goes back home to sleep&#x2F;read. I&#x27;ve been like this since I was in high school. This was a personal choice back then, my reasoning was: &quot;study hard, work hard and the rest will come to you&quot;.<p>I come from a low-middle class family that made themselves from the ground, as a result, work ethics are very deeply ingrained in my principles. I have never failed to deliver what I promise on a school or work related environment. I do not mean to offend anyone with this but I have to say it just to further clarify my situation: I do not have any physical or mental disabilities, I dress appropriately, I&#x27;m white (although not American&#x2F;European) and I do not behave in an awkward manner.<p>Not paying attention to networking while I was in school and at previous jobs has severely limited my options for professional development. I almost never get good job offers, promotions or even proper acknowledgement for the things I do. They mostly go to people around me, some of whom severely lack what&#x27;s needed for the job, mainly due to their closeness to someone at HR, got tipped off by some friend, ... you get the idea. As a result of this, despite having done everything &quot;good&quot;, my career really never took off. I&#x27;m stuck in the same kind of  developer job as I had 10 years ago. Now the walls are closing in since people raise an eyebrow when they see my age, I cannot just go and hunt for jobs as easily as I could five years ago. Right now, I&#x27;m at a terrible company and I truly hate my current job () I don&#x27;t want to go in detail as I&#x27;m really not like that). I cannot just leave since I have bills to pay and also because I&#x27;m scared of not finding anything else. I know almost no-one in the industry and my few friends have different ways of life.<p>I would like to read some practical advice on how may I expand my reach to (hopefully) find better job prospects. Among other things, I tried to join some related meetups in my area, but honestly they are mostly made up of people who take it as a hobby (not that there&#x27;s anything wrong with that). I truly don&#x27;t know what else I could do.