Internal Networking vs. External Networking

Which one might be more valuable?

There are many fraught discussions of networking in the modern age (technology has increased the confusion), and I think one topic that needs a little bit of attention is internal networking vs. external networking.

Internal networking would be networking opportunities within your own organization. These are actually much more frequent than you’d think, because the silo mentality is pretty pervasive — so oftentimes you might go years without knowing what a person on the other side of the floor is doing. Attempting to learn that would be an example of “internal networking.”

External networking would be the conventional way we think about networking — namely like events, business card-slinging, LinkedIn outreach, all that.

Which one is more valuable?

Because external is more common and comes to mind first, probably most people would say that one. Also, external networking is usually more tied to new jobs — and new jobs usually mean more money, so most people would probably say external networking is more valuable.

But is that true?

Internal networking research