Why Emerging Professionals Need to Be Taught How to Build Professional Relationships

Organizations spend enormous amounts of time developing their people.

We teach employees how to use the software, sell the product, manage projects, understand the business, comply with regulations and lead teams.

But there is one professional skill that is often assumed rather than taught:

That’s a problem.

Because relationships still influence careers.

People advocate for people they know. Managers trust people they have gotten to know. Mentors don’t appear out of nowhere. Opportunities often travel through conversations, introductions, recommendations and professional relationships.

And none of that happens simply because someone has a LinkedIn account.

The word networking carries baggage.

For some emerging professionals, networking means walking into a room full of strangers, shaking hands, exchanging business cards and trying to figure out who might help their career.

For others, it means connecting with hundreds—or thousands—of people online.

Neither definition gets us very far.

A LinkedIn connection isn’t necessarily a relationship.

An email address isn’t a relationship.

Following someone on social media isn’t a relationship.

Those things can make communication easier. They can even be the beginning of something meaningful.

But the relationship itself still has to be built.

That takes curiosity.

It takes conversation.

It takes listening.

It takes follow-up.

It takes trust.

And sometimes, it takes putting down the phone and sitting across the table from another person.

This is where organizations need to be careful.

It’s easy for an older generation to look at a younger professional and say, "They don’t know how to communicate."

I don’t believe that’s fair—or particularly useful.

Emerging professionals have entered a workplace fundamentally different from the one many of us entered.

Email, texting, Teams, Zoom, LinkedIn and social media are normal parts of how they communicate.

That’s not a character flaw.

It’s their environment.

The opportunity isn’t to criticize that environment.

It’s to equip people to navigate it.

Being comfortable communicating digitally doesn’t automatically teach someone how to walk into an unfamiliar room, introduce themselves to a senior executive, ask a thoughtful question, listen to the answer, follow up appropriately and begin building a relationship.

Those are learned skills.

And like most professional skills, they can be practiced.

Imagine you have a technically excellent young employee.

They’re smart. They’re ambitious. They understand the technology. They produce good work.

But they’re uncomfortable walking into a room where they don’t know anyone.

They don’t know how to start a conversation with a senior leader.

They don’t know how to approach a potential mentor.

They communicate primarily through messages rather than conversations.

And when an opportunity comes along, someone else gets it.

Was that employee less capable?

Not necessarily.

They may simply lack a skill nobody ever taught them.

That’s where professional relationship building belongs in employee development.

HR and Learning & Development leaders already understand the importance of technical competency, leadership development and communication.

Relationship-building belongs in that conversation too.

Because employees don’t work in isolation.

They work with managers, peers, clients, vendors, partners, mentors, executives and community leaders.

The ability to develop healthy professional relationships affects how people collaborate, how visible they become, who advocates for them and what opportunities become available to them.

Here’s another problem.

We often give people advice without giving them a method.

"Go network."

Okay.

What does that mean?

Attend a conference?

Connect with ten people on LinkedIn?

Collect business cards?

Give someone an elevator pitch?

That’s not a strategy.

I teach a much simpler starting point:

Be interested before you try to be interesting.

When you meet someone, find out about them.

Ask questions.

Listen to the answers.

Remember something.

Look for common ground.

And don’t immediately try to figure out what you can sell them.

F — Family
Learn about the people and relationships that matter to them.

O — Occupation
Understand what they do and what matters in their professional life.

R — Recreation
Discover what they enjoy and care about outside of work.

M — Meet
Explore who they may benefit from meeting—and what you should remember about them.

FORM isn’t a trick for manipulating a conversation.

It’s a structure for becoming genuinely curious about another person.

And that distinction matters.

One of the biggest misconceptions about networking is that success means having the largest network.

I don’t believe that.

I’d rather have 100 meaningful professional relationships than 10,000 names I couldn’t recognize if they walked into the room.

The objective isn’t to meet everyone.

It’s to develop the ability to recognize the right relationships and then invest in them intentionally.

That means teaching emerging professionals how to:

• Start conversations.

• Ask better questions.

• Listen instead of waiting to speak.

• Follow up.

• Remember what matters to people.

• Build relationships before they need something.

• Develop mentors and advocates.

• Connect other people when they can provide value.

• Become visible inside and outside their organizations.

Those aren’t merely "soft" skills.

They are professional skills.

And they become increasingly important as technology handles more of the transactional work around us.

Something changes.

The employee who once stood silently at the edge of a networking event may walk up and introduce themselves.

The young professional who didn’t know how to approach an executive may learn how to start a genuine conversation.

The technically excellent employee who wasn’t visible may begin developing relationships across the organization.

The emerging leader may begin building mentors, advocates and professional relationships before they actually need them.

And perhaps most importantly, they begin to understand that their career isn’t built exclusively by what they know how to do.

It’s also influenced by who knows them, who trusts them, who advocates for them and who is willing to open a door for them.

That’s not about playing politics.

It’s about becoming known as someone worth knowing.

The Human Advantage

Technology has made access easier.

It has made communication faster.

Artificial intelligence will continue changing how work gets done.

None of that eliminates the need for human relationships.

If anything, it makes the distinctly human parts of professional life more valuable.

A machine can send the message.

A person decides whether to trust you.

A platform can introduce two people.

A person decides whether to make the introduction.

Technology can create access.

People create connection.

That’s why relationship-building should no longer be treated as something employees are simply expected to figure out on their own.

It can be taught.

It can be practiced.

It can be developed.

And it can become one of the most valuable professional skills an organization gives its emerging talent.

That’s the Human Advantage.

1. Are we teaching our emerging professionals how to build relationships—or simply telling them to network?

2. Are we developing the human skills that complement the technical skills we’re already investing in?

3. What opportunities might our people be missing because they don’t yet know how to build professional relationships?

Those questions are worth asking.

Because your emerging talent may already know how to connect.

The question is whether they know how to build a relationship once they’ve connected.

Rob Thomas Networking helps organizations develop the relationship-building skills that turn connections into meaningful professional relationships.

The goal isn’t to teach employees to "work a room."

It’s to help them become more confident, intentional and effective at building the relationships that make careers—and organizations—stronger.

Technology can create access. You create connection. That’s the Human Advantage.