You told your former colleagues you’re looking for a new role.
You mentioned it to a few contacts over coffee. You updated your LinkedIn® profile.
People know you’re looking.
And they want to help. They genuinely do.
But when they ask “what kind of role are you looking for?” you say something like:
“I’m open to a lot of things.”
“Anything in operations or strategy, really.”
“I’m flexible. I just want the right fit.”
And then nothing happens. Not because they don’t care.
They just don’t know what to do with that information.
This is one of the most overlooked reasons networking doesn’t produce results.
The willingness is there on both sides. The specificity isn’t.
When someone in your network hears about an opportunity, they run through a mental list of people who might be a fit.
If your name comes up, they need to connect you to that role in about five seconds.
“Oh, that sounds like exactly what Sarah is looking for. She’s targeting director-level operations roles in healthcare companies. Let me introduce you.”
That’s a referral.
“Sarah is looking for something. I’m not sure what exactly. I think she’s open to a lot of things.”
That goes nowhere.
The difference between those two scenarios has nothing to do with how strong your network is or how much people like you.
It’s about whether you’ve made it easy for them to advocate for you.
Most mid-career professionals resist getting specific because they’re afraid of narrowing things too much.
They think being open to more means more opportunities will come their way.
In practice, the opposite tends to happen.
When you’re open to everything, people can’t place you anywhere.
When you’re clear about what you want, the right opportunities start finding you because the people around you know exactly what to listen for.
Getting clear on your target doesn’t mean you can only pursue one type of role.
It means you can tell your network in one sentence what you’re looking for so they can actually do something with it.
If your network knows you’re searching but the referrals aren’t coming, the issue usually isn’t the network.
They just need a clearer picture of what to send your way.
P.S.: If you want to understand how to network in a way that helps open doors at the mid-career level, this video walks through what works and what doesn’t:
What you’ll learn:
Why most networking efforts don’t produce real opportunities
How to have conversations that lead to referrals and introductions
What experienced professionals get wrong about asking their network for help
How to build a networking approach that feels natural and moves your search forward