How to network at academic conferences

Plus shout outs to my current television obsessions.

Hello and welcome to Academia Made Easier. I am so glad that you are here.  

One important aspect of academic conferences is the opportunity for networking. In my experience, few people in academia admit to liking the act of networking but many people in academia wish they had a larger network. Given this, it is helpful to focus on building a strategic network.  

I have discussed the importance of a strategic network before (see: “How to strategically build your network when you despise networking”). Short refresher: your network includes disciplinary, institutional, and external subnetworks. In each subnetwork you have individuals with whom you have close ties, weak ties, and no ties. Building your strategic network means paying attention to each of the three subnetworks, and moving people from “no ties” to “weak ties” and from “weak ties” to “close ties”. (If you haven’t yet read it, please do go read my original piece. I can wait here. Back? Okay, let’s move on.)

Academic conferences are an important opportunity to build your disciplinary and (in some cases) external subnetworks. And because time is tight, it is good to have a plan. That’s what today’s small thing to try immediately is about.  

One Small Thing to Try Immediately: Create a strategic networking plan

Networking does not need to be painful or even icky. The key is to focus on building and strengthening relationships. Try the following to make the best use of your time and energy:

1. Focus on strengthening connections in your disciplinary subnetwork. While it may be tempting to hang out with colleagues from your home university (aka your institutional network), you can do that at any time. Unless you truly never get to see them back at home, don’t invest your conference time here. (But do make a point of planning to connect with them soon!)

2. Establish your networking priorities. I suggest the following, in order:

• Solidify your close ties. Your goal is to keep your close ties from drifting into the weak ties category. So make it a priority to reconnect with the people you know quite well. Invest time heavily here. 

• Strengthen your weak ties. Here your goal is to convert weak ties into close ties. Take time to get to know people better. Ask them about their work, but also learn more about them as people, and let them get to know you. Find points of commonality and use these to increase connection. Bond about your shared obsessions with Succession, Yellowjackets, or Barry (if you are a television lover like me), your challenges of managing work travel with parenting, or (if you must) sports of some kind. Invest time moderately here.

• Increase your number of weak ties. Here your goal is to get to know a few more people enough that you each remember each others’ names in a year’s time. Invest time lightly here, and resist the urge to aim exclusively for the “big names” in your field. 

3. Decide your networking approaches. Here are my own:

• To solidify close ties, reach out ahead of time to deliberately schedule time for connection: meet for coffee, go for a walk, visit the book fair together, or plan to get together for a meal. Don’t leave this category to chance!

• To strengthen weak ties, make an effort to sit with people you recognize at sessions, stop and chat in the halls and at social gatherings, and walk together between events. Be mindful of creating connection by listening and showing true interest in the other person.

• To move no ties people (aka strangers) into the weak ties category, make it a practice to introduce yourself to people when you are sitting beside them or when they are standing with people you already know. Pretend to be your introvert mother who talks to strangers everywhere. Tell them your full name and where you are from, and give them a few short items of personal information they can grasp onto. (My version: “Hi, I’m Loleen Berdahl from the University of Saskatchewan. My areas are Canadian politics and public policy.” Pretty simple.) If you can strike up a short conversation, great. If not, well, such is life.

4. Be generous with networking. Your close ties are often strangers to each other. Help them connect. Introduce them and give them things to grasp onto when you do so. Repeat their names and find a point of commonality if you can. (E.g., “Rachel, do you know Samatha Superstar? Samantha is a Canada Research Chair at the University of Impressive Pedigree. Samantha, Rachel Risingstar is a new Assistant Professor at the University of the Hinterlands. You are both, by the way, cat lovers!”)  

With respect to networking generosity, a special callout to more established scholars: plan to take a few graduate students and/or early career scholars under your wing and introduce them to your networks. Be explicit with them about this. (E.g., “Rachel, I would like to introduce you to a few people who I think would benefit your network. Are you okay with this? Great - follow me!”). Make it a mission to help them in ways you wish others had helped you.

5. Make an alcohol plan before attending social events. While I am currently at a personal life stage of consuming roughly one or two alcoholic beverages a month, I mean no judgement of anyone’s alcohol choices. (Covid-me consumed sufficient amounts of wine to prevent me from ever judging anyone’s alcohol choices). At the same time, I do suggest that you have clear alcohol intentions prior to arriving at conference social events. With multiple bottles of wine at conference dinner tables and mixer events that seem to centre on alcohol, it is very easy to consume more alcohol than you intend. As conference events are professional events, be mindful of how alcohol fits into your plans.

6. Take a moment to build your external network when possible. Consider who beyond your discipline is available to connect with at the conference. This includes editors and publishers at the book fair, funders at the exhibition booths, and non-academics who are in attendance at the conference. (Colleagues attending Congress in Toronto this week, be sure to swing by the University of Alberta Press booth to meet Mat Butin. He is the editor of my next book, For the Public Good: Reimagining Arts Graduate Programs in Canadian Universities (with Jonathan Malloy and Lisa Young, forthcoming 2024) and a fantastic editor to work with. Tell him I say hello!)

These six steps should help make networking a bit more strategic and a bit less awkward. Please give them a try and let me know how they work for you!

Until next time…

If you are attending a conference and, like me, have concerns about the future wellbeing of PhD students in your discipline, consider asking your disciplinary association to start collecting discipline-specific data on doctoral outcomes in your country. (See my recent Skills Agenda column on this subject.) These discussions are important for our students and our disciplines.

Stay well, my colleagues. 

P.S. A bonus conference networking tip: figure out who the conference organizers are, including the section leads for any panels you are involved in. If/when you cross paths with them, introduce yourself and thank them for the (typically uncompensated) labour that they contributed to making the conference happen. So many people put a lot of work into conferences for limited to no recognition. They deserve your thanks, so take the time to express your gratitude. 

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