Networking Skills for Professionals from Underrepresented Backgrounds

Authors: AiLun Ku and Ray Reyes

Professionals from historically underrepresented backgrounds (including BIPOC professionals, first-generation college graduates and white-collar workers, and those from low-income households) are often told by well-meaning advisers to “network for opportunities” without further guidance. But without understanding how to navigate the hidden rules of engagement—the “cheat codes” that are passed down generationally among predominantly represented groups—many of these professionals are unable to gain entry to the majority white and privileged networks that control access to quality jobs, projects, and resources. For underrepresented professionals, networking can feel like negotiating a labyrinth blindfolded. Many believe they need to present a fabricated and inauthentic version of themselves to have a better chance of getting past a heavily guarded gate into the land of career opportunities.

We believe that there is a better way for underrepresented professionals to network—a way that allows them to garner support and access and move their careers forward while remaining true to themselves. In our work as executives at the Opportunity Network, a nonprofit devoted to supporting students from underrepresented backgrounds through college and into thriving careers, we have seen thousands of individuals grow their professional networks and use them successfully to advance at work.

If you are a member of an underrepresented group, especially if you are early in your career, this is a paradoxical moment. Despite the rhetorical support that most workplaces now profess for greater diversity, equity, and inclusion, reality hasn’t caught up. The benefits that professional networks grant still skew away from those faced with systemic barriers. But that doesn’t mean you can’t network successfully and amass social currency in the workplace. To build a wide and diverse professional community that will help you move up—and ultimately help you bring up others along with you—you must understand and navigate three lingering networking paradoxes that affect underrepresented individuals. Let’s explore each in turn.

The “Authentic Self” Paradox

The first paradox is the tension between code-switching and authenticity. Cornell professor Courtney McCluney and her coauthors describe code-switching as behavior in which one changes their “style of speech, appearance, behavior, and expression in ways that will optimize the comfort of others in exchange for fair treatment, quality service, and employment opportunities.” Being falsely perceived as “unprofessional” due to unconscious bias or divergence from dominant norms has real consequences. It can limit access to opportunities, information, and resources and ultimately derail career advancement. In response, professionals from historically underrepresented groups, particularly BIPOC professionals, often choose to weave code-switching into their workday. They may adjust their self-presentation by mirroring the norms, behaviors, and attributes of peers from dominant groups.

In the networking context, the drive to code-switch is heightened. Ongoing concern about meeting unknown—and possibly biased—people in situations that are layered with subtext and unspoken rules discourages underrepresented professionals from entering networking spaces as their authentic selves. However, code-switching is merely a tool for survival, not the answer. Beyond placing the undue burden of conformity and assimilation on people from historically underrepresented groups, code-switching is the erasure of one’s identity, an unsustainable sacrifice. Code-switching ensures safe and vacuous interaction, but it prevents you from making real connections and decays your overall well-being in the long run. How can you extend yourself to others when it isn’t safe to show up as yourself? How can you be your best when you can’t be you?

To manage this tension, we encourage you to reveal your authentic self gradually. The gradual-reveal approach doesn’t ask you to contort your identity to fit another mold. Instead, it allows you to remain true to yourself while asserting your agency in which parts of yourself you want to share and when.

First, understand that how much to disclose at work is a balancing act for everyone. While your CEO probably feels safe showing up at work, they aren’t going to share all the details from their Saturday night, and you shouldn’t either. Your colleagues are not your friends and family, and total disclosure is not your goal. Set and maintain professional boundaries while observing the extent to which racially based comparisons, however subtle, drive social interactions in your workplace. Next, put out a feeler—share as much of your authentic self as you feel comfortable and safe doing with a single colleague or a small group. Pay attention to how your colleague responds, and match yourself to the intensity and depth of the exchange. If the sharing is reciprocated and mutually beneficial, you may feel safe to reveal more. The gradual-reveal approach can be challenging to implement in networking settings where you’ll be meeting people who are truly unknown to you. Whenever possible, lean on a trusted connection from your growing network to gather information in advance. If you do end up in a conversation in which a gradual reveal isn’t going well, be prepared to politely move to a neutral topic and then bring the exchange to an end; this person isn’t likely to be a supporter, and you don’t need to waste your time with them.

The “Gatekeeper” Paradox

The second paradox is that networks can be both stubborn gatekeepers and transformative door openers. The race to hire qualified, diverse talent is always on, and few organizations are keeping up. This narrow pipeline is chiefly the result of gated networks’ tendency to value exclusivity and selectivity over diversity and expansiveness. This approach might have worked when firms were looking for cookie-cutter candidates from a short list of schools or a small circle of contacts, but these old ways simply do not achieve the new results that organizations are looking for.

The reductive truism “It’s who you know” serves an outdated version of professional networks that keep the gates shut. These networks concentrate power among those who know about jobs, decide who else gets to know about jobs, who gets hired, who gets mentored, and who gets promoted. These most in-the-know networkers end up wielding outsize influence. Absent deliberate intervention, this power imbalance sustains homogeneous networks and perpetuates a homogeneous workforce.

However, the widespread awakening to the need for a more diverse workforce, technological advances, as well as “the Great Resignation” have flipped the script. With the wide adoption of social media, everyone has the tools to be a transformative door opener instead of a stubborn gatekeeper. Knowing this, we encourage underrepresented professionals to adopt an asset-based mindset: Recognize that you undeniably and intrinsically bring something valuable to the table. You have a reserve of tacit critical-thinking and problem-solving skills gained through your lived experience; you are fluently bilingual and can competently navigate between cultures with care and confidence because you do it daily. This self-awareness will enable you to network confidently and present yourself as the missing piece to employers’ hiring puzzle. With an asset-based mindset, you shift the “it’s who you know approach from getting past the gatekeeper who knows about the job to meeting the door opener whose network is expansive enough to identify, attract, and recruit qualified talent (like you) from a candidate pool that has been historically untapped and underrepresented.

The “Proximity” Paradox

The final paradox requires professionals from underrepresented backgrounds to grow their close-knit professional circles into more expansive networks in order to increase their social proximity to networks of power and influence. Social proximity boosts social capital. And while it may seem like a contradiction, particularly if you are new in your career, social capital is intrinsically embedded in relationships in every direction, so we encourage you to invest time in building a network that is broad and deep—and attend to it. Networks are living structures that require nurturing and pruning.

Of course, networking upward will help you gain access to mentors and sponsors, relationships that are critical to your long-term career success. But don’t neglect networking laterally with peer and near-peer groups. Forming a network of peers boosts your self-confidence and provides the support you need to overcome the hurdle of soliciting new connections beyond familiar circles. Networking with midcareer professionals and near-peers also can help demystify the hidden rules of work that lie just ahead.

Finally, don’t neglect reaching out to those coming up after you. A 360-degree network-building approach gives you connections and resources to meet varying needs. It also develops the habit of giving career support to others while creating the opportunity to receive it.

With an expansive network, you can build a personal board of directors, a group of trustworthy people ready to offer critical and encouraging feedback to you. This group could include a mentor, a personal friend, someone from whom you seek counsel, someone who is well informed in your workplace or industry, and someone who can connect you to opportunities. Among your board, you should feel safe and comfortable enough to honestly grapple with challenges, receive candid and constructive feedback, be supported with unconditional regard, and be able to show up as your authentic self.

Code-switching, barriers to entry, and navigating power dynamics all take their toll. Networking can be tiring for anyone; to underrepresented individuals, it can be downright exhausting. But the first step to overcoming these challenges is being aware of the three paradoxes and managing them proactively. This must be reinforced by personal wellness and self-care practices—and leaning on the support of your growing network—to remain balanced when obstacles inevitably arise.

We hope that you and every underrepresented professional have the chance to operate from a safe space with access to soft landings as you help close the opportunity gap by building networks and exchanging social capital. Expansive networks traverse ethnicity, language, geography, age, physical ability, gender identity (pay attention to people’s pronouns), sexual orientation, social status, educational and training experience, and life experience. The more diverse your professional networks, the greater your access to information and connections and the sooner you will be in a place of abundant social capital and able to raise others up along with you.