My daughter just graduated from high school and is heading off to college this fall. We're having a graduation party and I was reminded of how my stepson found a co-op position at one of our other parties.
If you're job searching, consider mixing business with pleasure and spend some time job search networking at social events.
It's fine to let people you meet at a party or another event know that you're job seeking. In fact, given that the unemployment extension is all over the news, it's a opportune time to mention that you're job searching.
Networking isn't as hard as you might think - it's just a matter of working your job search in the conversation at the appropriate time. In fact, a party is a terrific way to mix business with pleasure and to take an advantage of an opportunity to boost your job search or career.
Most people are happy to help, but they can't help if they don't know that you're actively job hunting.
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This is great advice. I’ve heard that’s it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, and while I agree that it really is a combination of both, this expression is very accurate if you simply want a foot in the door.
I also ‘friend’ or ‘like’ companies that I would enjoy working at (no matter how unlikely it is that I’d get that job) on social networking sites in order to keep track of what they’re doing and try to see if I can meet up with people that work there. Not only are they usually likely to talk to you, but they’ll see that you’re going the extra mile to try to network and get a job.
I’ve also heard that because there isn’t a lot of business (or jobs) going around right now, people in the field tend to have more time to meet with you or even set up a fake/run-through interview with you to help you prepare yourself.
There is a definite connection, for most of us, between Network and Networth. It isn’t any different than learning to get along with others on a team in order to win. Everyone can develop a level of comfort when it comes to building a network. The key is to build it in a way that becomes comfortable for you.
A client of mine had trouble looking me in the eye and, for him, the thought of attending a business luncheon was frightening (he was a brilliant engineer). We worked on eye contact, hand-shake and small talk (ie sports, business). I met him at the luncheon- introduced him to 2 people and then left him to sink/swim – - he swam and w/in 3 months was very comfortable in a business setting and had landed an excellent position.