Career experts say that the best thing you can do for your career is to spend more time networking, or making connections and talking to people — especially when it comes time to find a new job.

Alan Stein, former hiring manager and CEO of professional coaching company Kadima Careers, told Business Insider on Monday that job-seekers should put networking above applying for roles. Rather than endlessly applying to jobs, they should fulfill what he calls the “five chats” rule and aim to have five conversations a week with people at companies where they might want to work.

Stein recommends approaching these conversations with genuine curiosity and learning more about the other person rather than directly asking for a job.

“Go in there with an intent to learn about them,” he told BI. These conversations are a means of “leveraging your relationships” and creating new connections, he added.

Related: 5 Common Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When Networking and Building Connections

Networking could lead to an internal referral, where someone inside the company vouches for a job-seeker and puts in a good word with a recruiter or hiring manager. It could also lead to the job-seeker knowing about a job opening as it opens up, enabling them to apply early, which could give them a better chance of landing an interview.

Another career expert, Aaron Cleavinger, a managing partner at Murdoch Mason Executive Search Group, told BI that most job seekers spend 80% to 90% of their time applying for jobs, which usually results in just a 3% return in terms of interviews.

Instead, Cleavinger suggests aligning time investment with expected returns and spending just 3% of time on applications and the rest on conversations and networking.

“If your return is 3%, then spend 3% of your time applying to jobs,” Cleavinger told BI.

Related: How to Build Meaningful Connections in the Digital Networking Era

Networking is also a useful technique for people who are still employed and not actively looking for work, he mentioned. Those who have a job can still benefit from talking to one or two people a week about their work and building relationships.

“The time to start networking is when you don’t need something from someone else,” Cleavinger told the outlet.

Related: Want to Succeed as an Entrepreneur? Discover the Key to Building Long-Lasting Connections