Before moving to Canada I was afraid I would feel lonely. I have already gone through all those stages when you make life-long friends: school, university, first job. I’ve grown apart from many of them, but I still believe this is the time to network.
It’s not that I was scared to lose the friends I already had. My best friend lives in another city, so I know what a long-distance relationship is. I just was not sure how to build new connections when you finished all studies, have your own family, and don’t hang out because you are ready to zonk out at 22.30.
I calmed down when I started meeting people in Canada who are open-hearted and supportive. Surprisingly the online space was giving me trouble. Here is why.
LinkedIn is blocked in Russia, don’t ask me why. Of course, some professionals and companies still use it, connecting to the web with VPN and special browsers, but being an English instructor I had no need to have a profile there. I knew that it’s crucial for the American labor market, so when we got an invitation to apply for visas I downloaded that “special” browser. It took me sooo long to start a profile because of the low-speed connection. Anyway, I won. Now what? I didn’t know what to do next. I just waited until we moved and settled to figure out how it works.
Here we are, “Welcome to Canada!”. I started my job search, and the best tool for that is LinkedIn, right? But the majority of people I wanted to connect with were hidden from me because I didn’t have enough connections. I now have only 29, and I noticed that people don’t connect as fast as on other social media. They are not eager to accept someone they don’t know, but I can’t meet them in person, I don’t work with them and we don’t have mutual connections. You see, this is a vicious circle.
The online space where you are supposed to feel free and be able to reach out to anyone made me an outsider. I didn’t belong there. I still don’t, but I care less.
Have you ever felt left out because of the social media?
