Picture the last big conference you attended. Somewhere around the second coffee break, you found yourself scanning the room for a familiar face, someone from your research group, your program, your last institution, anyone who could give you an excuse not to walk up to a stranger. Maybe you found one and spent the break catching up with someone you already knew. It felt comfortable. It also meant you left that break exactly as connected as you arrived to it.

This is a common scenario, and though it’s not a problem, this approach won’t always help maximize the benefits of attending a conference. Engaging with people you know is important for maintaining relationships over time and can seed new opportunities. Those connections might even introduce you to someone new. Where the problem comes in is when the familiar faces serve as a shield to avoid the discomfort of facing down a conference hall full of accomplished strangers; the path of least resistance rarely leads anywhere new. The people who seem to leave conferences with a fresh collaborator, a new mentor, or a lead on their next position usually aren’t more naturally outgoing than everyone else. They’ve just gotten more comfortable tolerating a few minutes of awkwardness in exchange for a conversation that might actually matter, and that’s a trade-off that gets easier with repetition.

Why Networking Feels Hard

Part of what can make conference networking uniquely uncomfortable, compared to, say, striking up a conversation at a departmental social hour, is that most everyone in the room is a stranger and everyone is also being evaluated at least a little. This means there are real professional stakes running through even the most casual-seeming conversation: is this person going to remember me? Will I say something that reveals I haven’t read enough in this subfield? Is this the moment I make a good or bad first impression on someone who might review my next grant application? There can also be the “starstruck” factor—how do you (or are you “worthy” to) talk with that big-name person whose work you admire? It’s helpful to know that other attendees have similar worries and might be managing their own nerves as well. So, remind yourself that you are there to learn and share, and meeting new people helps you accomplish that.

Be Intentional 

Before the conference, make a plan for how many new people you’d like to meet, what kinds of people, and why. “Networking more” is too vague a goal to act on, and vague goals tend to evaporate the moment the conference gets busy. A far more workable approach is to walk in with three to five specific names: the author of a paper that shaped your current project, a potential collaborator whose expertise fills a gap in yours, a program officer you’ve only ever emailed, or a senior researcher whose career path looks like one you’d want to learn more about. Check the program in advance for where they’re likely to be, a talk they’re giving, a poster session, and treat that as your concrete task for the day rather than something you’ll get to if the mood strikes. You could even reach out to some attendees before the conference to schedule a time to meet up.

This plan does double duty. It gives the trip an additional sense of purpose, and it refocuses you from “talk to somebody, anybody” to a specific, low-stakes mission you can execute even on a day you’re not feeling especially outgoing.

The Opening Line Matters Less Than What Comes Next

Most people overthink the opening line and underthink everything that follows it. The truth is, almost any reasonable opener works: “I really enjoyed your talk this morning, especially the point about X,” or “I’ve been citing your 2023 paper; mind if I ask a question about it,” because the specific words matter far less than the fact that you said something true and specific enough to show you actually paid attention.

What tends to make or break the conversation is the follow-up. A good rule of thumb: ask one real question and then genuinely listen to the answer instead of mentally rehearsing what you’ll say next. “What are you excited about working on next?” or “What made you decide to pursue that angle instead of the more obvious one?” tend to open people up far more than a polite comment about the weather or the conference food. People remember the folks who asked something that made them think, not the ones who performed a flawless self-introduction. You might also be on the lookout for making particular types of connections, like a potential collaborator who is an expert on a key approach or tool. Don’t be afraid to say that. “I’m looking to connect with someone who has expertise in Method A or Topic B. Who do you know in that space?” Most people want to help if they can, and you can always follow up by thanking them and asking if there are any intros you might make for them.

Let Structure Do Some of the Work

Unstructured mingling is challenging among strangers because it puts the entire burden of initiating on you with no built-in excuse to approach anyone. Structured settings remove a lot of that burden. Poster sessions work in your favor here: hosting your own poster gives people a built-in reason to start a conversation with you, and visiting someone else’s poster gives you the same excuse in reverse, since asking about someone’s own research is a conversation starter that essentially never fails.

The same logic applies to meals, workshops, mentor–mentee lunches, or affinity events that many conferences now build directly into the schedule. These exist precisely because organizers know unstructured mixers don’t work well for a lot of attendees. If your conference offers a formal small-group or speed-networking session, it’s worth treating that as a genuine opportunity rather than something to skip in favor of a more casual event, since the structure is doing you a real favor.

Meeting a Future Mentor or Supervisor Without It Feeling Like an Audition—or a Transaction

For early-career investigators, the stakes around a specific conversation with a potential postdoc mentor, a PI whose research group you’re eyeing, or a department chair at an institution you’re interested in can feel enormous, which makes the conversation harder to have naturally. It’s worth remembering that senior researchers attend these events partly because they’re also looking to meet promising people, and a good conversation doesn’t need to double as a formal interview to be worthwhile. It also doesn’t need to be a transaction where everyone has to get something specific at the end.

A useful reframe: you’re not auditioning for a role in a single five-minute exchange; you’re planting a seed that a good follow-up can grow. Come with one or two genuine questions about their work, be honest about your own interests without overselling them, and resist the urge to cram your entire CV into the conversation. If it goes well, a natural next step might be, “When could we continue our conversation?” 

Closing the Loop After the Conference Ends

The conversation in the hallway is only half of what makes a connection actually count. A short follow-up email within a few days, while the exchange is still fresh for both of you, does more to convert a pleasant chat into an actual professional relationship than almost anything said in person. The best versions reference something specific from the conversation rather than a generic “great meeting you,” since specificity is what signals the conversation actually mattered to you.

This is also where a connection can start to grow into something more substantial than a single good conversation. Building a network of thought partners who can help you refine ideas over time often starts exactly this way, with a single good exchange at a conference that gets deliberately nurtured afterward rather than left to fade once the badge comes off.

Conferences Are One Lever, Not the Only One

It’s worth keeping conferences in perspective as one part of a larger visibility and relationship-building strategy rather than the entire strategy. Some of the most durable professional relationships form outside the conference hall entirely, through digital platforms, invited talks, or collaborations that start closer to home. If you’re thinking more broadly about how to build your presence and reputation in your field, conferences are a genuinely valuable piece of that picture, but they work best alongside the other channels rather than carrying the whole weight on their own.

When Introversion Isn’t the Problem to Solve

Not every instinct to step back from a crowded room is because we’re avoiding the discomfort of networking. A multi-day conference is a genuinely draining amount of social exposure for most people, and pacing yourself, skipping an evening event to recharge, and choosing depth over volume in who you talk to is a legitimate strategy to manage your energy. Rather than set a goal to talk to everyone in the room, aim for a handful of conversations that actually matter. Then, acknowledge when you’ve hit your limit and give yourself space to recover.

The Comfort Zone Moves; It Doesn’t Disappear

Every conference you attend with intention makes the next one slightly less intimidating because the edge of what feels manageable keeps shifting outward. Exposure and repetition build comfort and skill that will allow a new habit to form. 

The next time you’re standing at the edge of a room full of strangers, badge on, program in hand, it might be worth asking a smaller, more answerable question than “how do I network better?” Just this: who’s one person in this room I could learn something from in the next ten minutes, and what would I actually want to ask them?