If you’re going into PR, you better already know that it’s nearly all about connections. Knowing people who know people. That’s how you will land your first job, your second, and third. That’s how you will learn about your clients, your employer, your co-workers, your friends, and your enemies.
If you really want to move up the ladder, it’s done by getting a lift from the helping hand of others. Those who think people have an unfair advantage by knowing people would call this way of helping those whom you know, climbing people. They are ashamed that anyone would do such a thing. To them, though you may be up, they look down upon you. They see it as the only way you can go up in the corporate world is to get on the shoulders of a person taller than you. It’s unfair to them that they work hard while you keep climbing people because you know more of them.
I’ve heard people complain that the only reason a person got a job is because they knew someone, the only reason they got accepted was because they were friends with an insider, the only reason they landed the contract was because a family member is the head of the contracting department; the list is endless.
Do these people have an unfair advantage though?
Not at all.
It’s fair, because they (or you) could have connected with the same people. They (and you) could also have connected with different people and have gotten even higher.
The only matter of fairness is that it’s unfair people aren’t trained in this at an early stage. Everyone can connect with someone if they really want to, it’s what defines us as humans. Let’s quit saying how unfair it is that someone one-ups you because they know someone who knows someone.
Knowing people is life. Get one.
