Ask HN: Social skills for hackers | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Social skills for hackers

2 pointsMichaelAza4 comments

Coming a bit late to the party, but I'm coming to understand that just being a highly skilled professional won't get you far without networking skills.

Since it doesn't seem to come easy to a lot of us - how did you learn to network, have people like you, keep a conversation going etc.

Any recommended books? Videos? Courses?

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Practice with colleagues. I find networking events impossible if I go by myself but fun if I go with someone from work. As far as specific books go - find something that fits your culture. Lots of people from the USA rate Dale Carnegie highly, but as a British person that approach doesn’t feel quite right. General interest psychology can be readable and enlightening. Thinking Fast and Slow. Emotional Intelligence. Maybe something on Mindfulness if you aren’t familiar with focussing on your own feelings and emotions.

You make a very important, and often overlooked point: Social skills vary from culture to culture. Make sure to research this from the context of your culture and location.

Networking, having people like you, and keeping a conversation going are three different skills. You should divide and conquer them.

I started with conversational skills because I found practice to be easy to do (you can practice with your family).

Networking is more complex but boils down to finding common interests with strangers. On Twitter, I seek out people with whom I seem to have something in common (python for example). Then I just follow them and join in their tweets in a friendly way. This approach helped me get a job after hurricane Maria destroyed my home country and I had to relocate.

Getting people to like you, well, that's the hard one. What has worked for me is tons of empathy, actively looking for ways to help people, and checking up on their progress. I'm neither good looking, charming, nor an extrovert. It's a lot of work but it's worth it.

Go read Dale Carnegie's How to make friends and influence people. It's a good solid start. You can also email me and I'll gladly help you on your journey.

PS. I'm soon doing a conference talk on this subject titled Networking for nerds: for people who are bad at people. It will appear on the developer on fire conf this coming January. I assume it will later be available on YouTube for free.

Go to a trade show and find an invite to one of the trade show parties. There will be lots of sales people there with "sales person" personalities. Talk with them. They're usually good at talking so you should not need to feel stress to keep the conversation going. You might pick up some techniques.

PS it's usually easy to score a trade show party invite. Just ask at any friendly booths where the best party is that evening.

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