Quintessential Careers Press:
The Quintessential Guide to Storytelling that Propels Careers
Chapter 4: Networking as Storytelling
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The often misunderstood art of networking is all about establishing relationships so that you can enlist support and comfortably ask for ideas, advice, and referrals to those with the power to hire you or advance your career. Storytelling provides a wonderful way to build these relationships because of story’s ability to instill emotional investment. Tell a good story to new network contacts you meet, and they will care much more about your success than if you had simply listed facts about yourself. This chapter introduces two primary ways to integrate storytelling into your networking activities:
- Developing a brief introductory speech to succinctly tell network contacts who you are and what kind of work you seek. This speech is usually referred to as an “Elevator Speech,” but for our purposes in this chapter, let’s call it the Elevator Story. You may want to develop multiple versions of this story to have ready for various situations.
- Enlisting an “advisory board” of network contacts to review and critique the stories you use at all points in the job search.
By now the Elevator Speech is a fairly well-known tool not only for job-seekers but also for organizations and individuals with products and services to sell. Authors of numerous Internet articles on the Elevator Speech offer speculations on the origin of the term – ranging from the notion that we often run into important people in elevators to the more common explanation that the Elevator Speech is a clear, concise bit of storytelling that can be delivered in the time it takes folks to ride from a building’s top to the bottom in an elevator.
Whatever its exact origin, the Elevator Story is an exceptionally useful and versatile tool in numerous situations:
- Events designed specifically for networking.
- The casual networking opportunities we encounter nearly every day – the kids’ soccer games, plane flights, waiting in line to buy tickets, and on and on.
- Career or job fairs.
- Cold calls to employers.
- Cold calls to absent employers: Rita Fisher of Career Change Resumes suggests that leaving your Elevator Story in the form of a voicemail message virtually guarantees that the employer will call back. Hint: Assuming your story is sufficiently compelling, call after hours when you know for sure you will get the employer’s voicemail.
- Opportunities within your own company to talk with higher-up honchos, let them know you’re doing a great job, and position you for promotion.
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