Full disclosure, I'm the original author of the post.

Unfortunately, if you network to get a job, you're already months behind.

As I talk to college kids, I try to get them to find opportunities to network while they're in school, before they're desperate to get that first internship or job. They want to come at their search from a place of confidence, not anxiety.

There are so many meetups at universities (at least at the one near me) that they can mingle with the working world, and they stand out because they're there when it's mostly professionals.

Student or not, networking works best in-person when possible (conferences, meetups, professional events) where you get to know people and get truly curious about them. But after that, it involves following up and keeping the relationships warm, showing that you are interested in people professionally and can possibly help them with their problems, and that's no trivial investment.

If you do that enough, then you will build trust and rapport to create some opportunities, but it's admittedly a long game. It also has to be genuine or else people end up feeling used.

I think that there is a blocker that a lot of people have against networking in general because it feels gross and insincere. We've all seen people do it poorly, and so we avoid it, but it can be really fulfilling if done well.

People are free to network right here on HN, and they do. I placed a friend I found here with another friend, so it does work.

However, it takes time.

If you need a job right now, it won't happen via ordinary networking, by which I mean networking with people whose job isn't recruitment.

If you think of networking as a pleasant way to keep some interesting ideas flowing and making some friends, circulation will get you things that you never even thought of.

(The best professional recruiters actually stir the pot for years and years before getting a return. Constantly keeping up with what various people are doing, just in case the time is right for someone to move on.)

I'm actually a bit surprised, because as a young guy I didn't do any networking beyond connecting with colleagues, which certainly helped. But I'm finding lots of young guys will reach out to me for advice. It's a good habit, but one I suspect more than half the population doesn't practice.

For anyone still in school, networking is easy for students who take initiative. This doesn't mean going to networking events. It means actually doing things with actual people: get involved in undergraduate research, sports, arts, Greek life, volunteering, on-campus part-time jobs, etc. Universities have those low-barrier low-risk things going on that you can just try out. Students who do this get the inside track on opportunities that aren't broadly advertised, so they face far less competition and are likely better fits for those opportunities due to the experience they got by being involved.

IMO, the first thing to recognize with networking is that there are at least 3 tiers of people you know, with regards to their ability to help in your job hunt. Tier 1 are the people who know your technical ability, and can directly vouch for you being a good contributor in your role. These people are great to have, but new grads simply don't have them, for the most part. Most of the people able to directly vouch for their competency are their equally looking-for-work peers, or pretty distant from industry professors. Tier 2 are the people who know you well enough to assert that you're not an absolute pain to be around. They don't necessarily know whether you're a genius double-stack 12x developer or a codemonkey, but they know you're reasonably likeable. Then there's Tier 3, who don't know anything about you personally, but they know people who know you.

New grads (myself included, back then), tend to discount Tier 2, because in their head the hiring process is looking for the single applicant with the best technical skills. When in reality, it's a lot more of a "who can we get quickly, who won't have a negative impact on team output or morale". Parents, Parent's friends, friends, and friend's parents all can fall into Tier 2, and absolutely should asked about whether their workplaces are hiring, and if so, if they could provide a recommendation.

Tier 3 is mostly useful for finding out about positions that don't necessarily get publicized, but depending on mutual connection to the shared acquaintance, might be willing to offer a recommendation.

With regards to where to network, that comes down to engaging with social gatherings that bring together a spread of people that aren't exclusively your direct peers. That's the stumbling block a lot of new grads find themselves in, which is that all their social time is spent with other new grads (or worse still, nobody at all). Clubs, parties thrown by friends' parents, university alumni events, hell, join the Oddfellows (YMMV, some lodges stopped recruiting after Vietnam). Conferences, whether technical or not. Hell, a step I recommend for everyone is going to bars and talking to strangers. Not highest density networking opportunity (except some gay bars in SF), but it's a pretty good environment to practice casual communication with people you have approximately nothing in common with, with very low stakes.

- share your work online (twitter used to be the far-and-away best place for getting eyes, but this is a bit less clear now. youtube can work well, maybe also tiktok or sites like medium?)

- go to events/conventions/join clubs related to programming (need to be located near a large city for this)

- talk to other students/self-learners and wait for them to get to the next step

I’ve been unemployed a long time and have been thinking of improving at networking. These are what I came up with.

your professors. your classmates who got a job. your family and friends of family. anyone else you know that respects you.

If you're a junior, develop connections with a few seniors.

If you're a senior, maintain relations with last year's graduating class (and with your placement services people).

If you get an internship, keep in touch with people there.

The other responders have it: forego the "networking" apps like LinkeIn. (It's really just a graph analysis tool for salespeople.). Do thinks with actual face-to-face connection. That's what will make you stand out.

If you are a new grad: go to alumni events. Go to alumni events! GO TO ALUMNI EVENTS.

If you are still in school: talk to your alumni and career office; they will be able to connect you better.

If you are in High School: consider a university with a co-op program.

The value of fact-to-face connection should not be underestimated.

Again: this may be uncomfortable for some people, but it is the way of the world.