Quintessential Careers:
Career Networking Do's and Don'ts
by Katharine Hansen, Ph.D.
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Here are the keys to successful networking for your job-search. Follow these simple rules and you should achieve success in this important strategic tool of job-hunting.
- Do realize why networking is so important. Only 5 to 25 percent
of jobs are advertised, so you can find out about all the unadvertised
openings only through talking to as many people as possible and telling
them you are looking for a job.
- Do read our article,
Networking
Your Way to a New Job.
- Do think creatively about where to find network contacts.
You can find people to add to your network almost anywhere.
- Don't go anywhere without copies of your resume
and business cards or networking cards. You can keep your
resume in your car or briefcase, but be sure you can access it
easily if you meet someone who could pass your resume along
to a hiring manager.
- Don't be afraid to ask for help. Most
people are flattered to be asked for assistance and
advice with your job search. It makes them feel important.
- Do join a professional organization related to your field. In a survey
conducted for A
Foot in the Door: Networking Your Way Into the Hidden Job Market, professional
organizations were cited as the top venue for networking. See our
General
Professional Organizations and Associations.
- Do volunteer. Volunteer work was cited in the
survey as the No. 2 way to make network contacts.
- Do find a mentor. A mentor -- that one person who
can guide you, help you, take you under his or her wing and nurture
your career quest -- can be the most valuable kind of network contact.
- Do come up with a system for organizing your
network contacts, whether a spreadsheet on your computer, a file
box of index cards, a three-ring binder, or whatever works for you.
- Do consider conducting informational interviews,
the ultimate networking technique. See our
Informational
Interviewing Tutorial.
- Don't forget to thank everyone in your network who
has been helpful to you, preferably with a nice thank-you note. It’s just
common courtesy to show your appreciation for peoples’ time and
assistance, and your contacts will remember your good manners.
- Do keep networking even after you’ve found a job. You never know when you might need your network contacts again.
Questions about some of the terminology used in this article? Get more information (definitions and links) on key college, career, and job-search terms by going to our Job-Seeker's Glossary of Job-Hunting Terms.
Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., creative director and associate
publisher of Quintessential Careers, is an educator, author,
and blogger who provides content for Quintessential Careers,
edits QuintZine,
an electronic newsletter for jobseekers, and blogs about storytelling
in the job search at A Storied
Career. Katharine, who earned her PhD in organizational behavior
from Union Institute & University, Cincinnati, OH, is author of Dynamic
Cover Letters for New Graduates and A Foot in the Door: Networking
Your Way into the Hidden Job Market (both published by Ten Speed Press),
as well as Top Notch Executive Resumes (Career Press); and with
Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D., Dynamic Cover Letters, Write Your
Way to a Higher GPA (Ten Speed), and The Complete Idiot's Guide
to Study Skills (Alpha). Visit her
personal Website
or reach her by e-mail at
kathy(at)quintcareers.com.
Have you seen all our networking resources?
Read all our job-hunting do's and don'ts.
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