Before You Update Your Resume, Audit Your Network

01Start with the destination rather than the contact list#

“I want a new job” is too broad to produce a useful network strategy, because someone moving from consulting into industry needs different people around them than an executive pursuing a board role, a data leader trying to enter healthcare, or a corporate professional considering entrepreneurship.

The first part of the audit is therefore to describe the next move with enough detail that another person could understand what you are trying to become, because once the goal is clearer the network begins looking completely different.

This principle has influenced how we built Goal Mapping in Virre, because starting with thousands of contacts and asking what they might be useful for is much harder than starting with one goal and asking who is connected to it.

02Question 1: Who has already done something similar?#

The first people I would identify are those whose past resembles the future I am considering, because someone who has already moved from consulting into a corporate role, from corporate leadership into entrepreneurship, from an operating role into a board portfolio or from one industry into another can usually give you information that a general mentor cannot.

Their value comes from having experienced the awkward middle of the transition, when the old identity no longer fits perfectly and the new one has not fully formed.

03Question 2: Who has actually seen my work?#

A large professional network is far less helpful if very few people can describe what you are genuinely good at, which is why former managers, clients, peers, direct reports and partners who have experienced your work deserve a separate place in the audit.

These are the people who can provide a credible reference, recommend you for something you did not know existed or explain your value in a room where you are not present.

Your resume describes what you have done, while your relationships determine how many people believe the description.

04Question 3: Who sits close to the world I want to enter?#

If you are moving into a new company, industry, function or ecosystem, identify the people who are already near that world even if they cannot directly hire you.

They may understand which companies are growing, which leaders are respected, which skills have become important, which teams are changing or which opportunities never make it onto a public job board.

This is where weaker connections can be surprisingly useful, because close colleagues often know many of the same people and information that we already know, while former colleagues and more distant professional relationships frequently sit in completely different circles.

05Question 4: Who will tell me the truth?#

Career transitions make us unusually vulnerable to encouragement that sounds useful but tells us very little, because hearing “you would be great at anything” feels wonderful while doing almost nothing to improve a decision.

I would identify two or three people who understand me well enough to say that a target role is wrong, my story is unclear, the market does not value something as much as I think it does or I am underestimating a strength that should be central to the next move.

Every network needs people who open doors, but it also needs people willing to close the wrong ones.

06Question 5: Who knows people I do not know?#

These are your connectors, and they are sometimes much more important than the most senior person in your address book because their value comes from moving between communities, companies, functions and industries.

A connector who understands what you want can often help you reach several relevant people, although that only works when the relationship is strong enough that the introduction does not feel like a favor requested from a stranger.

07Question 6: Which relationships have I neglected?#

This is usually the uncomfortable part because most of us can immediately think of former colleagues, managers, clients or mentors whom we genuinely liked and fully intended to stay close to before two years somehow disappeared.

I would not avoid those people simply because the silence feels awkward, because a meaningful shared history often survives a longer gap than we expect, and the bigger mistake may be allowing another five years to pass because we were embarrassed about the first two.

08Turn the audit into action#

Once you have these names, categorize them according to the role they may play in the transition rather than according to where you met them, because “Novartis,” “conference” or “former coworker” describes the source of the relationship while mentor, advocate, connector, industry guide, hiring path or truth-teller describes why it matters now.

This is the difference between storing contacts and understanding a network, and it is also where Virre’s My Connections, Analysis, Match Score, Timeline and Goal Mapping are designed to work together, because a person should not become important merely because their title is impressive; they should become visible because there is a reason they matter to the goal.

09My thirty-minute network audit#

During the first ten minutes, define one career goal clearly enough that you can describe the role, industry, problem or direction you are pursuing without using vague language such as “something new.”

During the next ten minutes, write names beside the six questions above without opening LinkedIn, because the people you remember immediately tell you something about where your strongest existing relationships sit.

During the final ten minutes, open your wider network and deliberately search for the people you forgot, particularly former colleagues, clients and acquaintances who have moved into companies or careers that now overlap with the direction you want.

Then choose five people, not fifty, and decide what a good next conversation with each person would actually be.

A career transition does not begin when you submit the first application, because it begins when the people around you understand where you are trying to go.

I still believe a good resume matters, although I would no longer make it the first thing I fix when thinking about a major career move, because a resume can help someone understand my past after they find me, while relationships are often what help me discover possibilities I would never have known to apply for in the first place.

Before asking whether your resume is ready, I would therefore ask whether your network is ready for the career you want next.

Start with Virre and discover who matters, why they matter, and when to reach out.