When You Feel Like a Fish Out of Water
That is how I would describe myself in many networking moments — watching people fall into easy conversation and laughter while I find myself alone in a corner, wondering how they make it look so effortless. It happens when I am in a room full of strangers, when the topics seem out of my league, when the jargon jungle closes in around me.
But then I remember why I came: to meet new people, learn something useful, and give new connections a chance to form.
In my first few years in New Zealand, I was acutely self-conscious of the way I looked and how I sounded. My fair skin and black hair meant I was frequently assumed to be from China, and well-meaning folk would greet me with ni hao — to which I would simply say hello in return. For context, this was Hamilton: a smallish university city with international students coming and going, and a particular brand of parochialism I found difficult to reconcile with my very urban, cosmopolitan outlook. It was humbling, and at times uncomfortable.
While I was completing my PhD, I focused on building an academic network, attending as many symposiums and conferences as I could manage. But when the academic career did not materialise, I found myself having to build a completely different network — business owners, public servants, entrepreneurs — people who did not especially care that I had a doctorate. Venturing from the safe harbour of academia, where people enjoyed discussing abstract ideas and methodological debates, into a world of money, practicality, and politics, was disorienting and, at times, disaster-prone.
What saved me, eventually, was small talk. Once I could talk to one person about the weather, the food, or what was interesting about the venue, the rest felt more possible. Rapport came first. Everything else followed.
I share this not as a cautionary tale but as context: feeling like a fish out of water in networking situations is not a personal failing. It is an experience shared by international professionals navigating unfamiliar cultural codes, by migrants rebuilding professional lives from scratch, and by introverts everywhere who find the whole enterprise exhausting before it has even begun. What helps — for all of these groups — is not a better script or a more polished elevator pitch. It is a clearer sense of who you already are, and how to bring that forward with intention.
This is where character strengths come in.
What Are Character Strengths and Why Do They Matter for Networking?
The VIA character strengths framework, developed through research in positive psychology by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, identifies 24 strengths — qualities like Bravery, Curiosity, Kindness, and Zest — that represent the best of who we are. Everyone possesses all 24 strengths in varying degrees. Some sit near the top of your profile almost without your noticing, because they are so intuitive. Others require more conscious effort. All of them are genuinely good, and all of them have a positive impact on others when applied with awareness.
Taking the free VIA Survey at viacharacter.org gives you a ranked list of all 24 — your own unique character profile. And here is what I have found, both in my own networking journey and in working with international professionals and career coaching clients: when you understand your strengths, networking becomes less about performing a version of yourself you think the room wants to see, and more about bringing forward what is already there.
It is also worth thinking differently about what networking actually is. It is not a dreaded event with fancy drinks and a business card quota. It is a series of small moments — a question asked, a laugh shared, a follow-up email sent three days later. It is not the event that gets you a job. It is the small conversations that help people remember you. That shift in framing alone can take the pressure off considerably.
Below, I want to walk through four character strengths that I have found particularly useful in networking contexts — especially for those of us who feel culturally out of place, socially uncertain, or simply not built for working the room.
Bravery: How Do You Face the Fear of Walking In?
To be brave is to face your challenges rather than avoid them.
A Māori proverb or whakataukī captures this beautifully: Tūwhitia te hopo, mairangatia te angitū — feel the fear and do it anyway. But the literal translation offers something even more useful: tūwhitia te hopo means eliminate the negative; mairangatia te angitū means accentuate the positive. It is not just encouragement. It is a strategy.
Bravery in networking might look like tuning out the voice that says it will be a room full of strangers who have nothing to say to me, and replacing it with I might learn something useful from someone I have never met. That is a small but significant reframe — and it is exactly what Bravery, applied intentionally, makes possible.
Bravery also works well in combination with other strengths, particularly Creativity. If walking into a room alone feels too exposing, Creativity might suggest going with a friend and treating it as a social outing. Or setting yourself a small, manageable goal — two new connections added to your LinkedIn network by the end of the evening — rather than facing the whole room at once. Small targets, honestly pursued, are far more useful than ambitious ones abandoned at the door.
If Bravery is in your top five strengths: you likely already show up, even when it is hard. The work is in noticing that courage and giving yourself credit for it. If it is not: Bravery is a strength you can call on deliberately. Naming the fear, finding a manageable first step, and walking toward it anyway — that is Bravery in practice, regardless of where it sits in your profile.
Curiosity and Love of Learning: What Happens When You Get Curious Instead of Self-Conscious?
If Bravery gets you through the door, Curiosity and Love of Learning are what make the conversation worth having.
Curiosity is the motivating force that draws you toward new experiences and new people. Love of Learning is what happens next — the desire to hold onto and deepen what you discover. They are among the most closely related strengths in the VIA framework, and together they are, in my experience, the ideal combination for navigating an unfamiliar culture. They give you a reason to be in the room that has nothing to do with impressing anyone.
I remember hovering at the edge of a group already deep in conversation, smiling and nodding as people spoke. Mutual eye contact was my cue to offer a question. I made mental notes of what was interesting. I watched how others moved easily between groups — a friendly nice talking to you, hope to see you around and they were gone, joining another conversation entirely. In many Asian cultural contexts, leaving a conversation feels impolite. Here, it is simply how networking works. Curiosity helped me observe that without judgment, and Love of Learning helped me file it away.
Getting curious about the other person also has a liberating side effect: it takes the focus off yourself. The more I thought about networking as making friends rather than securing career opportunities, the less stressful it became. Nothing to lose. Everything to gain. And a much better opening line than Hi, I have a PhD, what do you do? — which I have, regrettably, actually said. A genuine question, a light observation about the event, or even a shared complaint about the weather will take you much further.
For international professionals specifically: your cultural unfamiliarity is not a liability here. It is material. Genuine questions about how things work in your new country — asked with real curiosity rather than performed interest — make people feel interesting and valued. That is a networking superpower many locals do not have.
Social Intelligence: How Do You Read the Room When the Rules Are Unfamiliar?
Social intelligence is the ability to be aware of and understand our own feelings and thoughts, as well as those of the people around us — and to respond in ways that are appropriate to the situation.
It is worth distinguishing it briefly from the related concept of emotional intelligence. While emotional intelligence focuses on identifying and managing your own emotions, social intelligence extends further: it includes understanding the dynamics of relationships and interactions, reading social situations accurately, and responding in ways that actually land. In a networking context, this is the difference between knowing you feel nervous and knowing what to do with that nervousness so it does not derail the conversation.
Here is a real example. I once approached a group at a networking event and asked what had brought them along that evening. The answer was brief: our company are event sponsors and we got free tickets. The group was clearly comfortable among themselves and not especially interested in conversation with a stranger. I felt foolish for a moment. Embarrassed, even.
But Social Intelligence gave me a second reading: these were likely regulars who had attended too many of these events, were there out of obligation, and had probably exhausted their networking energy hours ago. It was not about me. So I smiled, nodded graciously, and walked to the food table — partly to regroup, partly because the food was genuinely good — and looked for someone else who seemed more available for conversation. Drink in hand, I felt considerably less exposed.
That small recalibration — moving from what did I do wrong to what was actually happening in that interaction — is Social Intelligence at work. It does not eliminate awkward moments. It helps you recover from them without losing your footing.
For those who find networking socially exhausting: Social Intelligence also means knowing your own limits. Arriving early when the room is quieter, giving yourself permission to step outside for a moment, setting a time limit for the event — these are not cheating. They are self-awareness in action.
Putting It All Together: How to Use Your Strengths Before Your Next Networking Event
Whether Bravery, Curiosity, Love of Learning, and Social Intelligence appear at the top of your VIA profile or further down, they are all available to you. The question is how consciously you are drawing on them.
If these strengths are among your top five: bring them to networking moments with more intention. Notice when you are using them well, and when anxiety is quietly suppressing them. If they sit lower in your profile: here is an opportunity to develop them — to bring them to mind deliberately, practise them in lower-stakes situations, and notice what shifts.
Whatever your profile looks like, the goal of networking is not to become someone you are not. It is to bring who you already are into the room — with enough cultural awareness to calibrate how you express it, and enough self-knowledge to know what you are working with.
Start with the free VIA Survey at viacharacter.org. Fifteen minutes. Twenty-four strengths. Your own unique profile, ready to be put to work.
For Career Practitioners: Supporting Clients Who Struggle with Networking
If you work with clients who find networking uncomfortable — whether because of cultural unfamiliarity, social anxiety, introversion, or simply never having been shown how — the character strengths framework offers a practical and genuinely useful coaching lens.
Rather than beginning with tactics, begin with strengths. Ask your client what they already bring into a room. Help them name the courage it takes to show up at all. Explore with them which strengths they are suppressing out of anxiety versus which they are calibrating with cultural awareness. These are different conversations, and they lead to different outcomes.
I facilitate the CDANZ Special Interest Group on Character Strengths — a warm, reflective community of career practitioners exploring how strengths-based approaches can deepen our work with clients. Our next meeting is on Thursday 23 April 2026, 7–8pm (NZ time), and the topic is directly relevant if you support clients who find networking challenging — whether that is international professionals navigating a new cultural context, or anyone dealing with social anxiety or uncertainty about where to begin.
The meeting is open to CDANZ members and non-members alike.
Register here: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/1FIbsNPYRGS9SydcbXqb6w
Dr Sherrie Lee is a career coach for cross-cultural and mid-career transitions, based in Wellington, New Zealand. She is a Certified Career Services Provider™, leads the CDANZ Special Interest Group on Character Strengths, and works with international professionals, migrants, and academics navigating career change across cultures. Learn more at thediasporicacademic.com or book a free 20-minute discovery call.