By: Jon Steele
In a world where as many as 70 or 80 percent of all jobs go unadvertised, networking is not just a good way to find a job, it may be the only way. As easy as it is to grasp the concept of networking in a social context, taking the next step and developing a network for the purposes of finding work takes a bit of work and thought.
Laying the groundwork for that work, and beginning the process of thinking through it, is an important part of the three-day skills workshop at Drake Beam Morin. In addition to the class discussion led by consultant Preston Beckley, who owns his own executive search firm, a chapter in DBM’s proprietary workbook helps participants to assemble their own job search network.
Its primary building blocks are:
Prepare a 90-second introduction Since networking involves direct contact with network members, you should be prepared to outline your credentials, your career goals, your strengths whenever a networking opportunity arises. Think of this as your commercial, your chance to sell someone on helping you find a job.
Practice listening If you spend all your time talking, you alienate people. Give them a chance to express themselves.
Identify the network make lists of all the people you come into contact with during all your activities, work, youth sports, church and civic clubs. Add to it all your family members, then add the names of people you remember from college. Then add anyone else you can think of. When you’ve finished, you have identified your primary network.
Your secondary network consists of all of their primary networks. It’s easy to see how, after a level or two, your network could have thousands of members.
Manage your network you need to organize all your contacts with network members and make records of what happens, especially if you get a referral to someone in their network. Casual acquaintances count, too. If you collect someone’s business card, incorporate that person into your network file.
John McGlaughlin, a consultant presenting a recent entrepreneur workshop at DBM, showed how he always collects business cards from workshop participants. First, he keeps them in slipcovers that preserve their locations around the table or room, so he has a visual cue when someone calls him to ask questions about a given meeting. Second, he gets participants to give him a quick description of why they’re there their 90-second introductions and writes them on the cards or the meeting’s sign-up sheet so he’ll have a record of that, too.
Work your network call people, go places you’ll meet more people. If you don’t make contacts, the network is not working.
Don’t ask for a job if they know of one that suits you, they’ll bring it up. Otherwise, asking puts them on the spot and creates awkwardness and makes them less willing to continue the conversation. The purpose, after all, is to get a referral to someone in their network, someone who might have a job available or who might know someone who does.
Follow up not just with people you’re referred to, but also the referring party.
Be prepared to reciprocate networking is a two-way street. While you may not think you have anything to offer, you do. People you know at previous employers, information about how things worked at those companies; this is all grist to the networking mill.
The net effect is that, if he wants to find out about a potential client or to find a resource for a client, he nearly always has a contact who knows the person he’s going to talk to or has worked at the company and can give him a line on someone. That, after all, is the purpose of building a network in the first place.
