Gen Z is changing the culture of networking

The Future. Gen Z’s style of professional networking is more casual, relational, and global than previous generations, focusing on skill sets rather than job positions. That’s helping young workers build networks quickly and with little pressure… and, by design, it may actually help more workers find the job position of their dreams.

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Gen Z is remaking networking for the digital age.

Some trends:

• Young workers are focused more on peer-to-peer networking than peer-to-mentor networking, opting to make “internet friends” who can grow professionally alongside them.
• Professional networking follows the same rules as social networking — a mix of informal engagement with posts and content creation and sliding into those DMs.
• Networking is now borderless and not bound by time zones, thanks to the rise of digital communication and global social platforms.

But one of the biggest changes is Gen Z is networking constantly, as opposed to just in between jobs or when someone is looking to make a job move. It’s a daily practice.

That’s backed up by LinkedIn data, with the company’s director of corporate communications, Suzi Owens, sharing with Fast Company that Gen Z grows their networks 28.7% faster than millennials and 54.7% faster than Gen X.

In other words, the generation is really good at managing messages.