How to network with social anxiety?
I realize that networking is really important in getting a job. However, I have social anxiety which makes meeting new people really hard. I hesitate while speaking and a lot of the times what I say sounds really forced. I have always been an introvert
and have struggled socially since a kid. I can no longer ignore this issue because I know this will affect me professionally short-term and long-term. Anyone ever dealt with this issue? Any ideas on how to overcome it?
http://www.puritan.com/puritans-pride-brand-0102/st-johns-wort-standard…
Take for ~24-48 hours before.
Thanks. I'll check this out.
Meet as many people as you can and put yourself in the most uncomfortable situations and you'll get better at socializing.
social anxiety is not a condition, it is an attitude. do not let yourself believe otherwise.
No, you're an idiot.
That sucks OP, good luck. Might want to see a psych and get medicated.
Oh wow. Your suggestion almost gave me cancer. Social anxiety IS a condition. It's not just shyness. The disorder sometimes comes hand in hand with autism or other shi_ty mental issues such as increased likelihood of depression. The symptoms could be alleviated with e.g. medication (which is indeed anti-depressants that suppress panic attacks) and behavioral therapy, but this condition can't be "fixed" overnight by telling yourself "hey I ain't afraid of people at all". It's uncertain whether OP is diagnosed with Social Anxiety or not, but that's another story.
you're a naive, selfish, cunt; I am a student who has been abused and watched my mom get abused all my life resulting in the development of chronic anxiety, depression, and severe social anxiety as a result of my PTSD. I grew up being a extrovert- the president of multiple clubs at my university, an honors student, was admitted into some of the best universities in the country, and a varsity team captain. I developed social anxiety one year ago when my abusive dad sold my house, car, furniture, health insurance, and kicked my mom out of the country and I can't even make a phone call without wanting to cry and rip my hair out of my head now. So go fuk yourself
also I take $400 worth of medications for my anxiety and the social anxiety does not go away. The only reason I haven't slit my throat open is because I have a future and a mom to take care of but otherwise my anxiety is so severe that I'm not going to stop thinking about your inconsiderate comment for the next few weeks and every time it comes to mind, I'm going to get so fucking upset and anxious. Go read a medical book about anxiety, if you're even literate enough to handle that
Why go into a career which you are psychologically completed unsuited for?
All the money in the world isn't going to compensate for the anxiety.
Networking and Socializing? (Originally Posted: 08/06/2012)
Hello,
I am making this post because I want to ask experienced people who have worked on Wall St. about networking and socializing in the different finance-related jobs. So basically I am about to start my first year as an undergrad (I know, I'm young..or am I?) and I am not the most sociable person in the world. I have a passion for investing (I'm an adherent of the value investing philosophy) and I would like to work in an Investment bank in a couple of years (and possible a hedge fund later). I have read lot's of books and I think I might be able to meet the 'intellectual' (if you will) requirements to work in Wall St. However, I find myself more and more concerned on whether I will be able to network (since from what I've read, it's pretty much essential to network). What types of relationships do you forge with people and how do you do it? (I mean, suppose I am in a convention, and I want to meet people; what exactly do I talk to them about? What if you are not an outgoing person? Can you still make it?). Any information regarding your networking experiences in Wall St. would be appreciated.
Thank you.
Networking is pretty important in basically every field and not just finance. There aren't a lot of career paths which don't require dealing with people.
Just practice man. You're in college now - go out with other freshmen, hang out in people's dorm's, etc. Don't study by yourself, or go to the gym by yourself, do it with friends. Communication skills improve with time
you are just an awkward high school nerd...no big deal. you are about to enter college where most learn to socialize. first priority of college should be to establish a good group of non-loser friends or your gonna have a bad time.
Also, your school will put on career fairs and meet and greets with business related firms/companies. I strongly suggest just going and practice networking and socializing while your young so when you become a junior and are looking for that internship/job, you will be well prepared. go with friends, it will make you feel more comfortable and not so uptight. Also, try actually getting to know your teachers. suprisingly, some are actually pretty cool.
Career fairs didn't do much for me but for others it must have been a way for them to crack in. Your school should have a listing of available internships you can interview for. Try interning at more than one place and rotate a bit.
Networking For Shy People (Originally Posted: 12/03/2012)
This is my first post, so please go easy lol. I've always been a little shy but have realized what a deterrent it can be professionally. I moved to the city I'm currently in but have no real alumni network down here. I have some friends that work in finance here, but not really with companies I would want to work for. I realize I just have to be more proactive with it. I was going to go to a local CFA dinner but realized I would be going by myself and wouldn't know what to do once I got there. I've read a ton of books on small talk and how to work a room but I still think I would have some difficulty putting it to action. If you had to go to an event by yourself should you just start going up to random people introducing yourself and asking what they do? When it came down to dinner would you just invite yourself to a random table with people?
I think you guys overstate the value of networking and understate the value of having a network, going to bat for the right people, and having people who will go to bat for you.
You don't need to be an extrovert for any job in this industry, except sales and maybe at the SVP/MD level in IBD. You do need to help people and be able to ask other people for help. It really is that simple.
I have a relative who is constantly networking and selling all the time. He needs to do less networking and more building a network. That means sometimes just standing back on the sidelines and being one of the smartest people folks know on an important issue, and always being available to help or connect them with folks.
Great advice for a fresh grad with no track record of success and never having worked in a professional setting.
I am a bit on the anxious shy type myself and it doesn't help that it's my first year here in U.S. What I realize is that if you are hungry enough, you would not care if you are shy and you would just go for it. Once you attempt, it will get easier and easier as you attempt to strike up conversations again and again.
A few subtle things you can do is: (1) Always give a firm handshake when you introduce yourself (2) Practice with the mirror for some time (3) It's not as if you will be seeing that guy again unless you take the initiative too so just be yourself. What's the worst that could happen? (4) Don't look elsewhere when you talk
I am still learning but so far all these points have helped me a lot and Good Luck!!
Eye contact Please don't dress like a nerd. Learn to talk about some default topic/small talk. (i use sports, in particular basketball). Be an interesting person;if you're not, get better at story telling, go travel and have some adventures, read random books,etc. Follow up on contacts.
Pretend that you have confidence/are outgoing and nobody will know the difference. Everybody is not focusing on you.
^ To add to that, once you start forcing yourself you will gain more confidence.
Flask. Whisky. Done.
I think a lack of confidence stems from a self imposed view of inferiority. Sometimes it's justified, but usually not. Figure out what makes you great and focus on that in your head. Also throw in a few jokes.
I've been in the same boat. I'm an introvert by nature and always have been growing up. After I got a retail sales job, though I learned how to articulate and socialize in front of strangers pretty well. I think getting involved in student organizations at school goes a long way both in overcoming social anxiety and building networks. Also if you're known as a genuinely nice person, people seem to be attracted to that sort of thing.
Some of you guys are assholes. I struggle with social anxiety as well and I have to say the only real solution is to practice and make a conscious effort to understand how you portray yourself. I wish I could help more but I struggle with the same thing. I just am not confident with myself. Luckily, for whatever reason, I've always been able to communicate better with adults than people my age which has made networking easier.
Alcohol, lots and lots of alcohol.
OP, this can be improved upon, but only with practice and by actively pushing against your comfort zone in order to expand it. Being Happy Hour chair has done wonders for me in this respect. See yourself as a "host" and ask someone what's on your mind.
Mark Manson, the Art of Manliness and Toastmasters are all terrific resources for improving communication, connection, and conversation. Teddy Roosevelt and Winston Churchill struggled with anxiety and speech issues before they made a decision to work on it and turn themselves around. It can be done.
sorry to hear that OP. take my advice with a grain of salt, I'm very type A, extroverted, and confident. however, I do not think I was born this way, I struggled with insecurities all through school before I came to college, but I did some specific things to help me out. I don't think you can ever fully get rid of that part of your personality, but there are things you can do to help mitigate the impact. though these will help networking I believe, they're not specific to that task.
in no particular order:
health: exercise, diet, substances (meaning not a lot of them). you'd be amazed at what it does for your overall well being when you start seeing a nice looking body in the mirror, as well as all of the physiological benefits from endorphins, lower resting heart rate, etc. finally, the most underrated benefit of being healthy, you become more physically attractive, and having a healthy sex life is great for your confidence.
knowledge: despite being an extrovert, I love curling up by myself or just me and my girl and reading, regardless of if it's fiction, novels, or research reports, I get an extreme amount of joy from learning something new. for you, it may be reading, or it could be taking a class on coursera or khan academy, but I think the theme is the same: learning is fun.
skills: for me, this is sports. you get a great deal of pleasure from getting noticeably better at something. it could be as simple as shaving 30 seconds off your mile time, breaking 90 for the first time on the golf course, nailing that guitar solo you've worked on for a while, or winning your chess match in less moves/less time (not sure how you measure chess). the point is, pick something you enjoy and work at getting better. even if it's 15-20 minutes a day, it's important to have something unrelated to work that is a skill at which you're improving.
give back: not money (that's important too), but your time. there may be residual career benefits from this, but the point of it is to help out those less fortunate than you, and having someone look up to you/depend on you will make you more confident. could be the traditional routes of church soup kitchen, but maybe going to an old folks home, helping coach/tutor kids, whatever.
get out of you comfort zone deliberately and reward yourself when doing so. if you've never made a cold call to someone, give yourself a goal (how many calls), and also give yourself a reward (for me, this was always something mindless like a nice bottle of scotch or taking Saturday off to watch the Orioles game). I think it does tremendous damage to your happiness level if you're constantly stressing yourself (meaning always out of you comfort zone), but because it's important, you do have to do it, but make sure you reward yourself afterwards with something that puts you at ease.
overprepare: even as confident as I am now, I overprepare for everything. when making a presentation to a client/potential client, I go through all kinds of different scenarios of what I'm going to say, how I'm going to say it, etc. Essentially I rehearse everything and I'm a firm believer that if you rehearse your cold calls/networking conversations/informational interviews (what you say, what they might say back, what your response is, etc) and keep good notes, you'll naturally be more confident when you're out there.
positive thinking books: I will fully admit all of them are cheesy, but they do help to give you a little more of an optimistic view on life, which in turn helps your confidence, which in turn may help your anxiety. I'm not suggesting you get to the point where you see piles of shit as rainbows and unicorns, but I do think life is a lot easier if you don't have a raincloud over your head all of the time. 2 that helped me out are 7 Habits and The Happiness Advantage. plenty of others, pm me if you want to get specific
Health is very important for sure. And as cheesy as the whole "positive thinking" idea is, it can definitely work wonders. I'd say I'm an extrovert but sometimes I just don't want to talk to anyone. So I just repeat the mantra: "PMA: positive mental attitude". This helps me stay positive with each interaction
I used to have a lot of nervousness in social situations when I was younger but now I don't. The difference between my 17 year old self and my current self is night and day. It comes down to getting more overall confidence, practice, and desensitization. Don't take pills. Also @"thebrofessor" gives some good advice.
I dealt with this growing up as well. I think you should imagine that everyone has to deal with the same social situation. It is an information game between you and other people, not between you and yourself. In order to realize this try and recognize REAL facts about yourself beforehand so that you don't need to question them later...stuff like outfit, attitude, social position related to the crowd, etc. If you find the issue is that you are unrealistically insecure about these things then seek counsel from people with a credible opinion.
I hope this helps.
I find that the smartest and the best people in this business- or at least the field I work in- can come off as a little shy. Look no further than David Einhorn, David E. Shaw, Ben Blander, and Ken Griffin. There is nothing wrong with this- they are too busy obsessing about making stuff better to worry about selling it.
Extroversion is important in sales and not being a total introvert is important in IBD- tho I know a few very successful introverts there. Outside of that- in QR, Research, Trading, personalities run the gamut. In Stat Arb and HFT, the best folks are often either balanced or introverted.
This is a field with lots of Type A and Type B personalities, and the Type Bs wind up running the place a lot of the time- or at least a helluvalot more often than the type As claim. What you need to focus on is being someone that people would want to hire, and then having the confidence to simply show that person to people who can help make the hiring decision.
There's a difference between confidence and extroversion and I'm afraid that distinction is lost on much of WSO. You may not have the personality for sales, but trust me, there's a lot of places for introverts on Wall Street. Focus on figuring out how you will add value, and then develop confidence in that. Once you have that, you can shout down the naysayers and folks trying to shake you off your game, and you'll get the job you deserve. If an introvert can clear that hurdle, everything else this business can throw at people is pretty darned simple.
http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_ar…
Practice, practice, practice. Toastmasters is great, and you can use meetup groups in your area for casual practice meeting new groups of people with a shared interest.
To a soft-spoken quant, this thread feels a little too much like an Amway convention with all the talk of Toastmasters and Seven Habits. Just as long as nobody is trying to give me Xs Energy drink bottles, or sign me up to sell stuff I'm fine.
Look I honestly think it's easier to devote effort to making a better product than devoting more effort to selling a merely average product. If you're doing it right, the product mostly sells itself. You should be devoting 90% of your effort towards making yourself a more valuable person to the economy, and 10% of your effort trying to sell that value. Now for Sales, half or more of that 90% may very well be doing Toastmasters or the like. But for many other fields in finance, the best approach might be to work on open source projects, develop statistical tools, learn a lot more about a specific industry, or figure out a place to add value to an existing group on Wall Street that's looking to hire.
Focus on deserving the sale, then focus on making it.
hey man I'll reply here because I think there's a balance, it's not one or the other. my point is that if OP has difficulty in social situations, he should work on the social aspect of his personality. there's no wrong or right with intro/extro shy/outgoing, Amway/shut-in, everyone needs a balance. nobody should be a pure salesman (used car guys come to mind) who can't think critically and analyze something thoughtfully, but then again nobody should be a robot, with no social skills who can't make a presentation.
if a person is great analytically but a social klutz, then he needs to work on the social stuff (seven habits & toastmasters as you mentioned). whereas if someone is a complete bullshitter, he should probably hit the books or look at something like CFA to polish up the other end. what people forget (and I doubt this is you) is that introversion and extroversion are less about how "smooth" someone is and more about what gives someone energy. a pure extrovert gets energy from being in a group of people, be it playing sports, chilling at a bar, or even a study group. on the opposite side, a pure introvert gets energy from within and prefers to be alone when he needs to recharge his batteries. in practice, nobody is purely one or the other. I'd say that the most successful people out there have a good balance, even if they lean one way or the other.
this isn't an argument about "which is better?" it's just a list of suggestions on trying to help OP with what is clearly a social thing (networking).
to your point about making yourself economically valuable, I completely agree, people often confuse networking with shmoozing. networking is creating relationships with people who can provide value to one another, and shmoozing is trying to have the most LNKD connections and business cards for completely shallow and selfish reasons with no intent to reciprocate value in the relationship. I think that you hit the nail on the head with making sure you have value and focus on bettering yourself so that it's not a shallow request when you call on your network.
I completely disagree with products mostly selling themselves, it depends on what type of product, how informed the buyer is, is it a good or service, etc., but that's a different argument for a different day.
Start socializing more outside of networking and professional settings. To be honest the same advice I gave to that other kid on how to get laid is probably 100% applicable to your current predicament especially if you replace "rip their pies" with "land an interview/job."
There is no shortcut, there is no canned response, youtube video, speech course or whatever else that will carry you through. Trial & error, you gotta get out there and just start talking to people until it becomes natural.
But you already knew that, so stop thinking and start acting.
I do agree that some buyers are more informed than others, and that definitely changes the approach. I still think you need a product that a sophisticated person would put in his top 2-3 recommendations to your target audience. It boosts your confidence, makes the sale easier, and makes you a reliable person to do business with.
edit: this is what I meant by robot:
and this is the pure salesman:
I'm paid on performance too, as are most people in my field. I don't think this needs to be a huge debate, and OP is asking what options are there for introverts. Now that "become extroverted" has been thoroughly thoroughly covered, hopefully we can have a discussion about other steps to take, in addition to that- and answer OP's question.
At my firm the guy who got one of the biggest bonuses (this is a very large hedge fund) looks terrified when he has to give a speech. It's like watching David Einhorn or Ben Bernanke- he is well poised and well spoken but deep down you can tell he'd rather be getting mugged than be standing up there giving some speech. And at work he largely keeps to himself. Introverts do perfectly well in this industry and we don't want to scare them away when they have the opportunity to do better than every extrovert on WSO is currently doing.
I still think the key to getting the job you want is deserving the job you want, and being just un-shy enough to ask for it. It is easier to be outgoing if you are someone that companies ought to hire and if you're confident of that fact.
Hopefully you have a few things going for you and play to those strengths. If you don't, find stuff that Wall Street needs and most people can't offer. Get advice from your friends and from recruiters. Think about what groups could use these skills . Then go up to a recruiter and just ask for advice. Say that you have this background in Y, you're looking for a role where you can use it on X. You're not someone who wants a job on Wall Street- you're someone who knows which sort of job he wants, and it happens to be on Wall Street. This is usually enough to disarm most recruiters, and this low key approach is a lot easier to execute than being some fast talking guy with slick hair and a Jersey accent. (That guy normally doesn't get the job either. )
No you aren't and no they aren't. You are paid to be a quant, your bonus is paid based off the carry your fund generates which is performance. I was referring to most of my compensation is derived directly from the revenue I personally generate, as in my performance as a trader. Another distinction I'm sure you'll argue until the end of time (alone I might add).
How many times are you going to edit/expand your original comment? I've counted five times so far. And why do you always go off on a tangent? The OP is not a quant, the OP has no job experience, the OP is specifically asking about strategies to get over social anxiety.
Your response that I replied to was:
"I think you guys overstate the value of networking and understate the value of having a network, going to bat for the right people, and having people who will go to bat for you."
and
"I have a relative who is constantly networking and selling all the time. He needs to do less networking and more building a network. That means sometimes just standing back on the sidelines and being one of the smartest people folks know on an important issue, and always being available to help or connect them with folks."
How does someone accomplish becoming an expert or get into a position where people are seeking his advice before the OP has even landed his first job? You also completely missed the point of the OPs post.
I also don't understand why you then chose to re-frame the argument into, well he can just get into a technical role if he doesn't want to network. I've never heard of a major being that elastic where you can just hop over from finance into CS or Statistics on a whim. You were interviewing for an engineering role so the only thing that mattered was your competency on technical questions. That is a completely different career path and believe it or not in business you need to be good with people in order to rise the ranks, sell or generate revenue for your business. I'm sure you'll hit on how that doesn't apply to HFs or whatever else, but I'd remind you that managers are paid for AUM.
The common denominator of all of your posts is being unwilling to accept being wrong or off base. You just re-frame the argument or issue into something you think has given you a "win." For example "At my firm the guy who got the biggest bonus (this is a very large hedge fund) looks terrified when he has to give a speech." Great.
The OP asked: "I can no longer ignore this issue because I know this will affect me professionally short-term and long-term. Anyone ever dealt with this issue? Any ideas on how to overcome it?"
He wasn't asking for alternative career paths if you were an introvert. He asked how to OVERCOME it. I can't tell if you are slow or just lack comprehension, either way I don't care and I don't have the patience to pretend otherwise. I'm going to wash my hands of this weirdness.
For future reference, if someone asks for help on a specific question... answer the question they asked not the question you hoped they had asked.
Well now that we have Archer Vice's unusual anger issues out of the way, we can get back to answering OP's question:
1.) St. John's wort. 2.) Choose a career path that plays to your strengths. 3.) Develop a product that sells itself. 4.) Have confidence in that product and sell it. 5.) Build a network of people you trust; don't schmooz/ "network" as a verb.
It's really that simple, folks. Let's not make this more work than it needs to be.
Amazing, you edited your entire comment for the 6th fucking time, even while I was responding...
Just keep trying to put yourself outside of your comfort zone
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