Certainly, networking requires some self-promotion; otherwise, it would be nearly impossible to determine who has similar backgrounds and interests. Unfortunately, some see networking as an opportunity to take self-promotion to the extreme, giving everyone they meet the “hard sell.”
The goal of these hard sellers is to try to impress as many people as possible by talking about themselves as much as possible. This often produces the opposite of their intended results, as many are turned off by braggarts who show little interest in others.