Last Guide To Networking - Page 3 of 21

You meet with Contact B, talk with him, and by the end of that meeting you get the scoop on what might be happening in their company, and the names of three more individuals to speak with. You call them (as well as the other leads from Contact A) and the process continues, and so on and so forth.

There you have it. That's networking. Pretty simple, eh? As you have heard a million times, it's all about who you know. Right?

Well, sort of. It is who you know. But it goes much deeper than that.

These objectives (collecting names and phone numbers) are important, but too often are over stressed and overrated because the techniques and steps required to achieve them are easy to explain and presumably simple to follow (hence you see how I described the process as it appears on the surface in just two paragraphs). Many books and articles vary somewhat in how they recommend to specifically go about it, but the bottom line is the same: to become acquainted and share information with as many people as possible.

But as simple as it sounds, networking can be a painfully frustrating effort—especially when your goal is to find immediate employment.

Let me put it this way: if you had to grow your own food, would you wait until you were hungry to plant your seeds?

Certainly, you would not! Why? Because of simple laws of nature. When you plant seeds, you have to nurture them, and wait for them to grow. There is nothing humanly possible that you can do to accelerate the process. You water them, make sure the soil is rich, and allow time and nature to do the rest.

That's where networking suddenly becomes frustrating and difficult. It's also why you need to start doing it sooner rather than later. In my book, Don't Wait Until You Graduate II: Jump-Start Your Career in Today's Volatile Economy While Still in School (New Horizon Press, 2003), I articulate what I call the “two faces” of networking. The first “face” I described at the beginning here is the process of building a list of “contacts.”

But what doesn't get as much attention, and is much more effective yet more challenging, is turning those contacts into relationships (the other face).

Building relationships is a long-term goal. Building contacts is often regarded as, although mistakenly, a short-term goal.

The above is an excerpt from The Last Guide to Networking You'll Ever Need, which is available for sale for $17 in our bookstore or for free to those who subscriber to our free career newsletter. In this tough economy, people who find jobs usually do so by networking. Written by Keith F. Luscher specifically for the job hunting students and recent graduates with zero to three years of experience who use CollegeRecruiter.com. Are you networking at least two hours a day? Those who are finding jobs are. Don't be left behind. Read this book and you will quickly find a new job. To receive a free copy, subscribe to our free career newsletter.

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