Sital Ruparelia

1. Get caught up in your own world and busy life

2. Don’t bother keeping in touch with your network of friends, ex-colleagues, ex-clients and contacts

3. Lose your job / find your job may be under threat / or get stuck in a rut with your career

4. Get back in contact with your network because you’ve heard the mantra: “network is best way to find a new job”

5. Jump on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to broadcast your “hi, I’m looking for a job – please help!” message

6. Suddenly get on every social media site connecting, friending and poking

7. Request LinkedIn recommendations from people you’ve lost touch with (without making any effort to re-establish the relationship first)

8. Run around telling everyone “oh, I love networking it’s so great to reconnect!”

9. Keep asking for leads, help and advice from your network

10. Don’t bother taking a genuine interest in their needs or goals. Instead focus only on what you want

11. Eventually find a new job and tell everyone how clever and important you are

12. Don’t bother thanking all the people who have attempted to help or informally advise you through your career transition or job search

13. Tell everyone “….oh we must catch up once I’m settled into the new role. I’ll call you”

14. Get busy with the new job and forget to contact them

15. Just disappear off the radar and forget about your contacts and network once again

16. Keep going for a few years whilst things are going well

17. Then eventually get caught up in a rut again or lose your job

18. Get back in touch with your network, return to the top of this list and follow the same cycle once again

19. Start moaning and whining about how unhelpful and ‘cold’ your contacts and network have become

In an age where job security no longer exists, your network and relationships play a huge part on your career success. So follow these 19 steps and you’re guaranteed to damage your network and screw up your career.