How do you advance your career through your social network?

When you network, the goal isn’t to request a job.  The goal is to give the other individual an opportunity to get to know you. It’s time spent sharing thoughts and having meaningful conversations around industry-related topics as a way to feel more comfortable with one another. Most importantly, it’s your way to do research on a person to see how you might help them some day with their vocation.  When you network, you get several things:  

• A sense of what makes the other person happy and inspired.

• An estimation of the best way to converse with the other person to make them feel valued.

• An opportunity to showcase what it would be like to have you as a fellow worker.

  Your networking should involve you asking a lot of questions and carefully listening to the responses. Try to get to know the individual in a way that will make it easier to get in touch with them again. From there focus on getting to know them better and feeling more comfortable communicating with one another. Eventually, you will come to trust each other enough to ask for assistance in a natural manner.   This is what networking is supposed to be about. If you focus on what they need and how you might make them feel good about having you as a colleague, the natural outcome will be referring you to jobs. Now that you know why networking is a job search priority, the key is to determine how to carry out an effective group approach.  Seek resources that will coach you through the process and provide you with examples of how to manage this. The more you can learn the right way to network, the less it will feel like a chore. Once you master the right networking techniques, you’ll love the fact you are helping others and making friends – the real rewards of effective networking during a job hunt!