The Inauthenticity of Professional Networking

Humans are, at their core, social creatures. From an evolutionary perspective, we have built relationships in order to survive. In the modern era, that evolutionary trait has blossomed into formal practice. Professionalism has birthed two practices that are so ingrained into the culture that we hardly think of them at all: networking and personal branding. These two practices go hand-in-hand, and people need both now in order to succeed in most careers. Networking is the formal practice of building relationships in a professional context. Personal branding is a newer practice of creating a brand for oneself, in the same way a business might. 

Both networking and personal branding are at the very least ethically problematic, and perhaps unhealthy for those that participate in them. While the Mass Culture we live in promotes both, this is not an indictment against that culture but an acknowledgement of the concerns surrounding these two practices. Qualms about these two practices exist, and for most that is a feeling of inauthenticity. Young professionals describe these two practices as making them “uncomfortable and phony, or even dirty” (Gina Et Al. 1). This opens up networking and personal branding to a fair amount of criticism. The two main issues with professional networking and personal branding are that these practices are inherently inauthentic, and they cause people to self-objectify themselves. We must address those concerns and create an alternative view, and subsequent execution, for these two practices. 

The first issue to deal with is purely one of definition. “Networking” is a rather ambiguous term, so of course we need to be clear on what is meant when used in this context. It is also good to know that networking in the formal sense is a relatively new phenom. The earliest work talking about networking was in the late 1930s, and the term networking did not even exist until the 1970s (Inc). So, even as communication professionals are talking about it, networking remains a newer practice that is derived from the mass culture that professionalism operates in. 

  In The Interpersonal Communication Book, Joseph DeVito explains a networking relationship as something beneficial to an individual saying, “[Networking] can be viewed as a process of using other people to help you solve your problem – for example, how to publish your manuscript, where to look for low-cost auto insurance, how to find an affordable apartment, or how to use Google drive.” (273). Think of formal networking as building up people as resources, professional relationships built based on what someone might be able to do for you.

It is also worth noting that DeVito clarifies a difference between informal and formal networking. We are focusing on that second category, the idea of systemic and strategic networking. Informal networking could be simply defined as having a relationship with another human, which is certainly interesting, but a different topic altogether. The idea of formal networking is what communication and business professionals are most interested in. 

What DeVito describes as formal networking, which we generally refer to as professional networking, is consciousnetworking. DeVito says, “Formal networking requires that you take an active part in in locating and establishing these connections. Be proactive; initiate contacts rather than waiting for them to come to you” (274). DeVito even goes so far as to advise young networkers to create a written list, a directory of sorts, of potential leads and already established network connections (273). 

Personal branding is a practice under the context of networking and is even newer, which makes it much easier to explain. This term is credited to Tom Peters, who first wrote about the term in an article for Fast Company, “The Brand Called You”. In this article, Peters is making a simple argument that the best way to network is to stand out. He says, “It’s time for me — and you — to take a lesson from the big brands, a lesson that’s true for anyone who’s interested in what it takes to stand out and prosper in the new world of work” (1). And so, personal branding was born. In the modern era personal branding has taken over, especially in online contexts. The reason the two are discussed in conjunction is because they are both incredibly common and intertwined. Personal branding cannot take place in a vacuum; it happens with purpose. Networking is the context that personal branding currently has to exist in, and personal branding has worked itself into a commonplace status. Both networking and personal branding happen with regularity that not participating has become deviant. 

Jayant Chaudhary explains in his article “Why Professionals Need to Work on Their Personal Brand” that it is imperative for job seekers to stand out from the competition. This is important to understand, that to business professionals networking and personal branding are not optional. Chaudhary even quotes a 2020 Harris poll which of recruiters and HR professionals in the U.S. believe that a prospect’s online reputation should influence their hiring decisions. Chaudhary explains that building an online brand for oneself is no longer optional, but an absolute necessity to the job market. This is an important thing to keep in mind: One cannot simply stop networking, as that would be a manner of self-sabotaging one’s own career. 

With that being said, it is time to begin unpacking the problems with these practices. The first, and most commonly recognized, is the inherent inauthenticity of networking. Naomi Klein, author of No Logo, offers a variety of criticism for networking and personal branding, specifically in the role that they play in mass culture. The first five chapters of this book give us a history of branding, which gives us more context for the implications of mass culture on the individual. In the beginning stages of its expansion back in the 1980s, the idea that companies should produce brands over products seem to be a rather harmless one. However, brands quickly spread and began taking over. Nike made sure that everyone was repping their brand, Disney took over a town, brands infiltrated schools and children were taught to identify with and support certain brands and oppose others. Universities branded and demanded religious devotion from their alumni.

Mass Culture can be seen as a hostile takeover for what would be considered a real culture. “The effect, if not always the original intent, of advanced branding is to nudge the hosting culture into the background and make the brand the star. It is not to sponsor culture but to be the culture” (Klein 30). Klein wants us to see that this is the result of the inauthenticity of mass culture. She is pointing out that mass culture, and its derivative practices, are at best parasites of what is reality. Klein is working from the assumption that Mass Culture is in itself wrong, therefore the results of it, like networking, are also wrong. 

Klein is not the only critic of these practices. Theodor Adorno, of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, wrote several essays about mass culture (what he called the “culture industry), and his main issue with mass culture is that it does not critique itself. Products that are sold on shelves do not intrinsically state the problems or potential downsides, only the positives of the purchase. Of course, when marketing, a business would not want to portray positives andnegatives, but that is exactly against Adorno’s system here. Adorno demands that all things; art, products, culture, etc., be brutally transparent. 

The reason this level of authenticity is so important is because it helps create organization within a person’s life.  Adorno finds that when a culture ceases to be entirely authentic, the lines between a personal life and a professional life begin to blur. “On all sides the borderline between culture and empirical reality becomes more and more indistinct. Thorough efforts in this direction have long been underway. Since the beginning of the industrial era an art has been in vogue which is adept at promoting the right attitudes and which has entered into alliance with reification insofar as it proffers precisely for a disenchanted world, for the realm of the prosaic and even the banausic, a poetry of its own nourished upon the work ethic.” (61). To blur the lines between a person’s professional life and their personal one is incredibly problematic. This is why we see networking as inauthentic: a person wants to present a relationship as being a personal one, when in fact it is motivated by their career. 

Klein and Adorno are both proponents of the idea that people go through the process of dehumanizing themselves into brands and walking businesses because that is a behavior that a synthetic culture has taught them to do. Adorno also does us the favor of explaining why people are willing to participate in this context, saying “The schema of mass culture now prevails as a canon of synthetically produced modes of behavior. The following which mass culture can still count on even there where tedium and deception seem almost calculated to provoke the consumers is held together by the hope that the voice of the monopoly will tell them as they wait in line precisely what is expected of them if they want to be clothed and fed” (91).

Mass Culture is, according to Adorno, in the business of producing behaviors (91). Two of those behaviors are networking and personal branding. What Adorno and Klein want us to believe is that these inauthentic behaviors are encouraged by an inauthentic culture. This explains not only the uneasiness that surrounds these practices, but why people are still proponents of them. For as long as one is willing to play by the rules they have the opportunity to win the game, so to speak. These criticisms of mass culture point out that if a person participates in certain behaviors then they will be rewarded in their careers. However, the inverse of that statement is also true. If a person does not participate in certain behaviors, then they are punished in their careers. Therefore, even if you are against mass culture entirely, you cannot simply stop practicing networking and personal branding, and still expect to see success in a career. Whether or not one sees mass culture as a legitimate culture, it still functions as one.

Now, on to the matter of self-objectification. With this understanding of inauthenticity, it does already seem obvious that there would be some consequences. Adorno does speak a little on this issue, in context of mass culture. Adorno posits that what mass culture is doing is encouraging people to treat themselves as an object, a product of sorts. “Thus, although the culture industry undeniably speculates on the conscious and unconscious state of the millions towards which it is directed, the masses are not primary, but secondary, they are an object of calculation, an appendage of the machinery. The customer is not king, as the culture industry would have us believe, not its subject but its object.” (99). Adorno’s point here is double: first, he points out that those who participate in the behaviors encouraged by mass culture are not necessarily even rewarded for doing so, and secondly, a person who participates in those behaviors loses their individuality. Mass culture resulted from the industrial revolution, so it would make sense that it treats people as resources or tools; the same way that a factory might. But even more so mass culture encourages people to think of and treat themselves as objects. 

An individual with something interesting to say about the matter is Martin Buber, the unknown father of interpersonal communication theory. An Austrian Jew who is best known for his work Ich und Du (I and Thou). Buber puts forth a theology that includes a principle of how humans relate to not only themselves and each other, but the world around us. “The attitude of man is twofold in accordance with the two basic words he can speak. The basic words are not single work but word pairs. One basic word pair is I-You. The other basic word pair I-It” (53). I-You is the first way that a person might interact with the world. Essentially, I-You can be thought of as interactions that are unmotivated. A person who is fully themselves to another person who is fully themselves is relating as I-You. Vice versa, if there are motivations, then a person is interacting in context of I-It. 

There are so many ways of relating, however Buber boils it down to two simple categories. “The world as experience belongs to I-It. The basic word I-You establishes the world of relation.” (56). This concept built out in Buber’s I and Thou became foundational for interpersonal communication theory (communicationtheory.org), as it allows for networking professionals to have a baseline for practices like networking. So, when a person is simply spending time around friends, or with family, one can think of that as I-You. I-You becomes in this context the personal relations for an individual, and then I-It is the area of professional relationships. 

However, Buber also points out that a person also relates to themselves, sometimes in I-You, but one can also relate to themselves as I-It. This second option is where a person begins treating themselves as a tool, their body and soul as something to be taken advantage of. This is the self-objectification that Adorno was touching on, but Buber showcases the ramifications of this action in greater detail, saying “But whoever lives only with [It] is not human” (85). We can see that the behaviors encouraged by mass culture are both damaging in two different ways. 

Networking is external, causing us to be inauthentic toward the people around us, and objectify them. Personal branding is to cause us to objectify ourselves and be inauthentic in our intrapersonal thinking. These two practices, although perhaps not evil unto themselves, have the capacity to wreak havoc on an individual’s life, and of course in turn the society in which these are practiced to a large degree. 

The obvious question now is, so what? As mentioned, these practices are not entirely optional for someone who is seeking success in a career. Therefore, even if one takes issue with these practices, they cannot simply forgo participating in them. The solution is to reframe how one goes about that participation. The issue with these practices comes when they are taken out of proportion. So, we must look at ways to first change how we think about networking and personal branding, and by extension change the actions we take when in the process of building a networking or creating a brand for oneself. Because these two practices are so intertwined, we can actually solve both by only solving one. Think about it: if networking is no longer us being inauthentic, there is no need for a personal brand. All one must do is restructure professional networking and personal branding will simply follow suit. 

To restructure these two practices, we also need to understand that these are not inherently wrong practices. Mark Bowden is an avid defender of the practice of networking. In fact, Bowden articulates himself as a defender of inauthenticity. Bowden is an expert in human behavior and body language and gives a TEDx Talk entitled “The Importance of Being Inauthentic”. Here Bowden champions the idea that one should present themselves in a manner that will convince someone to like you, going so far as to use body-language and non-verbal cues to subconsciously bring someone to want to like you. Bowden also points out that if we are entirely authentic then people will at best ignore us, or at worst actively dislike us. It is clear that communication professionals have thought about these criticisms, and their arguments do have merit. Bowden once again reiterates that being inauthentic is sometimes a necessity, and not inherently a bad thing. As we begin to restructure networking it is important to realize there are affirmatives points about what we call inauthenticity. 

It should also be made very clear that Buber does not paint I-It in a bad light, rather it is simply a way people interreact with each other, neither good nor evil. The problem we see in networking is that it is an attempt to emulate I-You, even though it is clearly I-It. That is why we see it as inauthentic. However, if one simply were to admit that it is a motivated relationship, then the inauthenticity dissipates. This might seem like an easy answer, but as Bowden illustrated earlier, that kind of blunt authenticity is unlikely to yield successful relationships. So, what we are looking for is a third option in which we can both be authentic about our professional relationships without also offending those we are seeking to gain from. 

That third option begins with James Carbary, founder of Sweet Fish Media, and author of Content-Based Networking, offers a fresh look at formal networking relationships, and how one can go about this practice without objectifying the individuals with whom you are trying to build a networking out of. Carbary’s main thesis is simple: “Life starts with, ends with, and revolves around, relationships.” (21). Carbary stumbles upon the beginnings of a solution to this problem, albeit without intending to. 

What Carbary is putting forth is the idea that the most effective form of networking is actually more ethical than traditional networking. Carbary argues that all involved parties must benefit, going so far as to say that if one does not genuinely care about the people they are networking with then they may as well throw his methods out (32). Here you can begin to see where Carbary is more aligned with I-You than I-It. This kind of thinking means that one can network without actually expecting anything in return.

Now that does sound radical, and this thesis does stand in opposition to the definitions given by DeVito and other communication professionals, but it does overcome these rather strong criticisms put forth by Adorno and Klein. Essentially, Content-Based Networkers offer their services and create content for other people in order to build relationship with those people. The difference between these networkers and other professionals in the intent. The content created in these contexts is beneficial to the guest for whom it is made for, the person who produces it, and anyone who consumes it. It is, as Carbary puts it, a triple threat (p. 37). As mentioned earlier, Carbary’s goal here is to create a situation in which everybody wins. 

Carbary meets Adorno’s criticism of inauthenticity by simply changing the purpose of networking. Instead of introducing yourself to someone in the hopes that you might gain something from them, or even approaching with a quid pro quo, Carbary networks by offering to help someone without expecting anything in return. There is no longer anything to hide or be inauthentic about, which removes a need for arguments like Bowden’s. 

With that being said, Carbary does not solve everything. His system of networking only works for content creators. What he lays out as content-based networking is the system “shining a spotlight” (54). He tells us to create content for other people, or shine the spotlight on them, and in doing so there is a chance that they may eventually help you. First, this does nothing to deal with the issue of personal branding, which is where we find self-objectification, and for anyone who does not work in fields relating to content creation (e.g., podcasting, video production, journalism, etc.) this system does not work nearly as well. So, while his ideas are certainly onto something, they are still at a surface level. What we are looking for is an entirely new structure that takes his worldview and applies it to networking and personal branding in order to solve both the issues created by these two practices. 

What we must now do is take the ideals put forth by Carbary and the terminologies created by Buber and create a system that allows for authentic networking that does not require personal branding, and so also removes self-objectification. This is an interdisciplinary conversation, so what we are doing here is taking the language created by Buber to help us work through the various types of relationship at play and combining it with the structure laid out by Carbary. This is both philosophy and communications put together. 

In a previous work, I coined the term “I-You Based Networking”, a system which melded together some of the ideas put forth by Buber and Carbary. This system was not created to combat the criticisms discussed, but it does an excellent job in doing so. 

What this synthesis is presenting is the idea that it is possible to have an I-It relationship wherein I-You is emulated, and more importantly, both parties are aware of this and consenting. 

Think of a friendship, in which two persons are engaged in a cycle of I-It and I-you. Sometimes they seek each other’s company out of motivation, in hopes of entertainment or perhaps emotional support. Regardless of the motivation, there is still motivation nonetheless, hence they partake in I-It more than I-You (Buster 9). We can apply this kind of thinking to professional relationships as well, and find that they can include both I-You and I-It. 

 That’s the point Carbary was making without even knowing; you can have a true relationship with someone and still get something out of it. In fact, Buber quite explicitly states “The basic word I-It does not come from evil-anymore than matter comes from evil” (95). We find that the process Carbary describes is pretty close to what one might create based on this principle, however, we do need to be a bit more detailed in order to create a more inclusive system.

Carbary lays out three points for content-based networking: Goals, Content, and People. For Content-based networking one does need goals, much like an essay needs a thesis. Without a goal, one is just aimlessly creating content for other people. That is not networking, that’s just being a charitable person. Second, is of course the content itself. Carbary points out that the content one makes about someone needs to be good. If you put out low-quality work you are not actually helping the person who you say you are. Finally, people: Carbary reiterates that content-based networking is about people. Not advantages or opportunities, but actual humans.

If we take these three points, and the ideals behind them, we can extrapolate effective networking for all. First, I-You based networking demands that the goals created do not objectify the people we are networking with. A person who can help is more than that, they are a person. When we think in those humanizing terms, we begin to set goals that are beneficial to everyone. Rather than thinking of our network as being the staircase that gets us to the top, I-You networks create a system that boosts everyone closer to their dreams. 

Second, content-based based networking means creating content that, as Carbary said, is helpful to everyone it involves. Content is the tool by which one networks. However, I-You networking does not have a specific vehicle for networking. Instead, I-You networking operates in line with a traditional method of networking: human interaction. I-You based networking is about building solid relationships with other people and benefitting them. Remember that we all have something to offer, even if it is not necessarily in the fields of communication or content creation. 

Finally, people. Of course, I-You is all about relationships, so this is the important one. It is also the simplest point, and nearly identical to what Carbary talks about. First, I-You networking is only functional when we are actively caring about the people around us. Since we are only emulating I-You, it is important that while we seek our own gain we not lose sight of the humanity that we surround ourselves with. I-You sees people, not resources. Because of this, I-You based networking requires that individuals be very conscious of who they are trying to network with and be transparent. 

The reason we must be certain that we are building relationships with the right people is simply due to the amount of time being invested. If one were to invest in a person who can’t or won’t ever reciprocate a service, then we have not networked, we have only made a friend. While that is not a bad thing, it’s not helping put food on the table. With this in mind it is important to be aware of who we are building relationships with and why. There is still strategy going on here because one must still be able to draw the line between professional relationships, personal relationships, and relationships in both categories that simply are not working out. 

It is also important to reiterate transparency. This is not to say we should shout our every thought from the rooftops, but make sure that we are being honest with ourselves about why we are doing what we are doing. While this motivation keeps us from actually experiencing I-You, being honest about it to ourselves helps alleviate the reservations we have about inauthenticity, or I-It. I-You networking is a personal philosophy that changes how we act in the world around us. Rather than attacking mass culture as Adorno does, or embracing these practices in their entirety, as Bowden does, we instead institute a worldview that allows to exist in mass culture in a way that does not leave us with these ethical dilemmas previously mentioned. 

There are a couple issues with I-You networking that do need to be mentioned. The first is the most obvious: if one does take issue with mass culture, then this system solves nothing. It stands under the assumption that the current structure is not something that needs drastic change or removal. The response to this objection is simple; in that that is an entirely different argument. It is certainly relevant to the discussion of these practices, but the question of whether mass culture is right or wrong, real or parasitical, is well beyond the scope of this conversation. 

It is also important to clarify that Martin Buber has a huge influence on the system, and his original work on I-You is based on the idea that there is a God. To put it into simple terms, Buber explains that when we experience I-You we are experiencing the soul, and through that God. “For as soon as we touch a You, we are touched by a breath of eternal life.” (p. 113). There is a great deal of theology and religion built into Buber’s theory, and if we are to apply I-You grossly to all people’s lives, then it needs to function whether one believes someone else has a soul or not. This particular objection is perhaps the most potent one against I-You based networking, however it is worth noting that we are only using the terminology provided by Buber. Communication professionals have used these ideas for years, knowingly and unknowingly, but only the actionable points that pertain to relations. I-You networking is doing the same thing, taking from Buber his ideas as they pertain the physical world, and leaving behind topics of religion for, again, the discussions that they are relevant to.

Lastly, there is the matter of self-objectification. It has not received as much discussion as networking, and opposition may well find a foothold in that void. Let us now reconsider the earlier point; that solving networking automatically solves personal branding. These two are intertwined, however it is not a simple question of A=B, B=A. Solving networking solves personal branding, but solving personal branding does not solve networking. Remember that personal branding was created because of networking. Peters explained that individuals needed to stand out, so people began branding themselves. Because I-You based networking is based on action, people stand out on their own, and do not need a brand as they did before. Even in cases where one might create a visual branding for themselves online (think logos, colors, etc.) they do not need to relay as heavily on it and will have an easier time separating out themselves from that brand. 

I-You based networking is designed to harden the line that mass culture blurred: personal and professional. In doing so we are able to alleviate the concerns that surround these two practices, and begin not only executing more conscientious professionalisms, but more effective ones as well. I-You based networking takes each of these ideas and begins to find a solution to the many objections from both sides. Working from DeVito’s definition of formal networking and its necessity as explained by Chaudhary, we understand that we have to build relationships in a professional setting. We then factor in the concerns as presented by Adorno and Klein, as well as the embrace offered by Bowden. Carbary and Buber each offer a third and fourth perspective that together, creates a new line of conversation: Networking and Personal branding are not inherently wrong, but the actions that people take in order to pursue these practices can be. 

I-You networking will look different for each person. Its purpose is to cause introspection into an individual and allow them to take agency with the parameters set forth by the society that exists within the context of mass culture. It is not a radical idea, but rather an attempt to refresh a practice that, while again incredibly new, has already tightened into a stubborn form that many are questioning. Even in the last few years communication professionals have started pointing out an unnamable negativity surrounding the practice. Jaquelyn Smith of Business Insider points out that “I would rather have great relationships with 10 people than be marginally associated with 100. I've found that I am connected to more and more people — and my network grows even faster — when I focus on building strong relationships and friendships.” 

So, I-You networking is about building relationships in a professional setting. There must be a distinction made between friendship and relationship in order for this to function. That distinction may look different for each individual, but there should be one nonetheless. The purpose of this idea is to bring about a more organized life. This kind of order also means creating more effective professional relationships. This is mainly due to the fact that we are focusing on quality over quantity of relationships, as Smith mentioned. Because we are spending the effort on the individual relationships we see the better fruit of better labor. 

Finally, all of this happens within a positive context that removes feelings of inauthentic and the need for self-objectification. This brings us back full circle, to the desire to participate in in the practice of networking and personal branding, without ethical qualms or uneasy feelings. The point of I-You networking is to network without a need to be inauthentic to the people around us or to oneself, which in turn means that we no longer objectify ourselves or see people as resources.

References 

Adorno, T. W. Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture. Routledge, 1991. 

Buber, Martin. I And Thou: Martin Buber; a New Translation with a Prologue "I and You" and Notes. Simon & Schuster, 1996. 

Buster, Daniel. A Look into Interpersonal Communication. Assignment 2, PRLG 3203, 2022. 

Carbary, J. Content-based networking: How to instantly connect with anyone you want to know. Lioncrest, 2019

Chaudhary, Jayant. “Council Post: Why Professionals Need to Work on Their Personal Brand.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 4 Mar. 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2022/03/02/why-professionals-need-to-work-on-their-personal-brand/?sh=761174a219db. 

DeVito, Joseph A. The Interpersonal Communication Book: 14th Revised Edition. PEARSON, 2015. 

Inc. “Networking - Encyclopedia - Business Terms.” Inc.com, Inc., 30 Nov. 2001, https://www.inc.com/encyclopedia/networking.html. 

Gina, Francesca, et al. “Learn to Love Networking.” Harvard Business Review, 18 Apr. 2016, https://hbr.org/2016/05/learn-to-love-networking.  

Peters, T. (1997, August 31). The Brand Called You. Fast Company. Retrieved October 12, 2022, from https://www.fastcompany.com/28905/brand-called-you 

Klein, Naomi. No Logo. Picador, 2010. 

Smith, Jacquelyn. “Here's Why You Should Stop 'Networking' and Start Building Friendships Instead.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 2015, https://www.businessinsider.com/networking-might-be-a-bad-thing-2015-1.