What Is Social Capital?

What is “social capital” and how is it different from networking? 

If you think networking is all it takes to land your next executive role, you’re missing the bigger picture. Social capital isn’t about collecting contacts—it’s about cultivating influence. It’s the reputation you’ve built over a lifetime and, when leveraged the right way, it’s the key to unlocking hidden career opportunities.

In this episode of ASK AN EXPERT, Barrett Group experts Dan Resendes and Waffles Natusch break down how social capital works, how it outshines traditional networking, and why you should learn to wield it like a master strategist — all within about three minutes!

Ready to change the way you think about career management? Let’s go!

Prefer Reading Over Watching? No worries—if video is not your thing, we’ve got you covered! The full script is written out below…

_____________________________

Dan Resendes: Social capital is your reputation.

Think about the word “capital.” Everyone has financial capital. So, your reputation is the positive impact that you’ve made on everybody throughout your entire life.

Social capital has nothing to do with technology. It has nothing to do with social media. It’s just another word for reputation. And your reputation basically falls into two buckets:

There’s the reputation that you’ve earned over the course of your life with everyone that knows you and respects you on the non-career side of your life. And then there’s the social capital that you’ve developed on the career side of your life.

So, when you take a look at what your qualifications are for a job…everyone knows the first three:

1. Industry capital,
2. Role capital (or the job function), and
3. Academic capital

Well, as soon as you’re an executive, the most important capital that you have is that your reputation precedes you because that hiring manager needs to justify why they picked you as the number one candidate.

Now, the difference between social capital and networking is, you can network with anybody who’s a total stranger. But if you’re out there creating great social capital partnerships…that’s totally different.

That means that you’re having nurturing conversations with everyone on the planet who holds you in high regard, regardless of whether they’re from the non-career side of your life or the career side.

Waffles Natusch: Absolutely!

So, let’s look at the question. We need to correct it because social capital is a subjective noun and networking is a gerund. That means we’re comparing “apples” to “picking.”

So, let’s fix that by calling it “employing social capital” — and how is that different from “social networking?”

I’ll explain the two…

“Social networking” is any two people who are talking to each other in the planet. That’s networking.

That is, we’re just building a network, right?

Whereas, “employing social capital” is using the people that you know, and employing them to meet the people that you don’t know – or the people that The Barrett Group knows – and building an army of people to generate, leads and offers.

That has to be done over a period of time and (as Dan pointed out in in the last episode) it should be done throughout your entire career.

But most people don’t start doing that until they join The Barrett Group.

It is the best way to land a new executive position. And you need to be active and focused about it.

It is a war! You need to use your pawns, your rooks, your knights, your queen, in order to win that war…or chess.

_____________________________

At The Barrett Group, we make it our job to help you find yours. To learn more about what we can do for you, contact us!