Personal networking is crucial to your career.
It’s easier when you’re more strategic about it.
Hopefully by this time I don’t have to tell you why ‘networking’ is important for your career, whether or not you’re currently in the market for a new job. If I do, you can review the basics here. And here is some more good basic info from the Rice MBA program, which is, if I am not mistaken, quite prestigious.
So you know you should be networking, and that you should be doing it on an ongoing basis.
But networking is more than just running around handing your business card (or your resume) to everyone you know. In fact, that kind of scattershot approach is almost guaranteed not to generate the results you want.
How to network more effectively
The best networkers – i.e. the people whose career trajectories tend to outstrip their peers – approach their networking efforts strategically. Here’s how:
1. Identify gaps
A good personal network contains a wide array of people in a wide array of roles from a wide array of industries, because you never know when you’re going to need specialized expertise or advice. Do you know a lawyer or two? An accountant? A procurement specialist? A couple of computer geniuses? If all your contacts are within your industry, it’s time to broaden your horizons a little.
2. Use Facebook to tap into your personal network
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Facebook isn’t just for ‘personal’ stuff. Check out your friends’ Facebook pages – could be that your best friend from university is now a senior VP of something and could be a great addition to your ‘career’ network. So why not invite her to lunch?
3. Be visible (especially online)
Google your name. Does anything come up? If not, it’s time to raise your profile, whether by populating your LinkedIn profile, starting a Twitter account, writing a blog, posting a presentation on SlideShare, even comments on blogs using your own name – something that indicates you’re different/above-average/not just another corporate drone.
4. Have something to say
This is both a corollary to #3 (in order to be visible online, you have to have something to say (preferably related to your career or industry, of course), and a networking strategy of its own. Networking is all about building personal relationships, and people like to build relationships with people who have interesting things to say. So the next time you go to a networking event, don’t think about how many business cards you can hand out – think about what insightful comments you’ll contribute to the discussion.
Which leads us to…
5. Have something to offer
Networking is a two-way street: The best way to put yourself in a position to ask a favour of someone else is to have done a favour for them in the past. So set yourself up as an ‘expert’ in something, and make it clear you’re happy to offer help or insight on that topic. (It doesn’t even have to be directly career-related – one young job-seeker I know has collected a lot of favours simply by being an expert in how to use advanced Blackberry features.)
6. Enjoy the process – and learning new things!
The most successful networkers are people who enjoy the networking process: They like other people, they like interacting with people, they love learning new things, and they see networking as an opportunity to do all three. Don’t think of networking as another unwelcome work-related task – think of it as an opportunity to meet interesting people, learn interesting things, or go interesting places.