Tips for Making Networking Work

By Doug Brown

Assistant Director

Graduate Career Service Center

Texas Christian University

© Copyright by Doug Brown, 2002.

In today's tight labor market, everyone seeking employment is becoming painfully aware that GOOD jobs are hard to find. Oftentimes jobs posted on the Internet, in the paper, and other “public” bulletin boards are usually filled by the time you get your resume in for consideration. Many times companies have posted jobs to “outsiders” strictly to fulfill their legal obligations. That's the obvious! So how do you find a good job? The answer is NETWORKING. Networking is not only beneficial as a tool to find a job, it is a great way to learn of new and exciting career opportunities that you never knew existed. Once employed, networking will provide benefits by providing you with contacts and connections, allowing you to get things done quickly. As the old saying goes, “It's not what you know but who you know.”

 

The benefits of networking are oftentimes unseen. For instance, let's assume you are looking for a job. You meet with someone for an informational interview. An informational interview is a meeting you arrange with a prospective employer for the sake of getting “face time.” The goal is to learn more about the company, the contact you're meeting with, and how your skill set might fit with their needs. The meeting ends and you each go your separate ways. We will assume that you really impressed the person you met with. Let's go forward one month and further assume that the person you met with is playing tennis with friends at the country club. During the match, the president of another company, with whom your contact is playing tennis, mentions that they are looking for someone with a sales and marketing background to open their new office in San Francisco but are having trouble finding the right person internally and would like a fresh perspective; someone from the outside would be ideal. Your contact chimes in and indicates that he/she recently met with someone that has the exact skills needed and would be willing to call for the president and arrange a meeting. There you are! You have found a job opportunity without looking. This example was boiled down for simplicity but situations very similar to this happen all the time. Trust me, I speak from experience on this topic. I have had several jobs and never had to look for any of them beyond my first job out of school. When you network and build lasting relationships, people will look for you!

 

So, how do you network? I've put together an outline of key action steps you must consider when beginning the process of building a professional or personal network.

 

1. Remember the objective of the meeting/information interview! - Get the contact interested and excited about you and make them want to help you find a job. How do you do that?

a. Don't talk about jobs , rather, ask them about their experiences when they were in your shoes and about how they got their first job opportunity.

b. Ask why they chose the career path they did.

c. Ask them about key skills it takes to be successful in their chosen field.

d. Ask them for a few tips that they wish someone would have shared with them when they were first starting in their career.

e. Never leave a meeting without first asking, and GETTING, one or more contact name and numbers or, better yet, schedule another meeting . Try scheduling a follow-up meeting first (in a month or so). If they cannot commit to that then ask for the contact information of people they think would have an interest in talking to you and/or you could learn from. Ask if they would not mind making contact with the person first.

 

2. Follow-up is crucial ! Never give up. Keep calling ALL leads and contacts, either prospective employers or network contacts, until they tell you to quit bothering them or you get in touch with them. Make follow-up attempts once a week (not any more often than that or you will be a pest).

The above is an excerpt from The Last Job Search Guide You'll Ever Need: How to Find and Get the Job or Internship of Your Dreams, which is available for sale for $19.85 in our bookstore or $27.00 at Amazon.com but for free to those who subscriber to our free career newsletter. This hot new book contains job search secrets of the most experienced, most knowledgeable and most respected career experts. Learn career planning, job hunting tools and tactics, interviewing, cover letter and resume writing (lots of samples!), networking, and how to find an internship. Written by 149 career experts. To receive a free copy, subscribe to our free career newsletter.

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