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Fellow introvert here. I don't have as many years in industry under my belt as you, but I have been through several job transitions and am enjoying the job I'm at right now. Every single one of my jobs came not from networking, but just cold applying to positions. If networking feels inauthentic to you, I would say just to forget about it and work at getting good at your craft. If you can demonstrate you have the skills and a company has a need for that skillset, they will hire and networking skills will be irrelevant. Also, if you're not having much success at applying for a type of position, it may be that the timing is just not right, e.g. a company has a superabundance of web developers, but what they are really in need of is embedded software developers. In a lot of cases, it's not about you, but about what the company's needs are. At one point in time, I applied to a company and failed to get in, but later on, I tried again, got the position, and it was a great opportunity. Was I that much better? Not really, just a timing thing. So don't give up and keep moving forward with practicing your skills and applying. The more you prepare and try, the better the odds of success. |