In the context of career development, networking is the process by which people build relationships with one another for the purpose of helping one another achieve professional goals.

When you “network,” you exchange information.

• You may share business cards, résumés, cover letters, job-seeking strategies, leads about open jobs, information about companies and organizations, and information about a specific field.
• You might also share information about meet-up groups, conferences, special events, technology tools, and social media.
• You might also solicit job “headhunters,” career counselors, career centers, career coaches, alumni associations, family members, friends, acquaintances, and vendors.

Networking can occur anywhere and at any time. In fact, your network expands with each new relationship you establish. And the networking strategies you can employ are nearly limitless. With imagination and ingenuity, your networking can be highly successful.

Strategies for Networking

We live in a social world. Almost everywhere you go and anything you do professionally involves connecting with people. It stands to reason that finding a new job and advancing your career entails building relationships with these people. Truly, the most effective way to find a new job is to network, network, and network some more.

Once you acknowledge the value of networking, the challenge is figuring out how to do it. What is your first step? Whom do you contact? What do you say? How long will it take? Where do you concentrate your efforts? How do you know if your investments will pay off?

For every question you may ask, a range of strategies can be used. Begin exploring your possibilities by viewing the following energizing video, Networking Tips for College Students and Young People, by Hank Blank. He recommends the following modern and no-nonsense strategies:

1. Hope is not a plan. You need a plan of action to achieve your networking goals.
2. Keenly focus your activities on getting a job. Use all tools available to you.
3. You need business cards. No ifs, and, or buts.
4. Attend networking events. Most of them offer student rates.
5. Master Linkedin because that is what human resource departments use. Post updates.
6. Think of your parents’ friends as databases. Leverage their knowledge and their willingness to help you.
7. Create the world you want to live in in the future by creating it today through your networking activity. These are the times to live in a world of “this is how I can help.”

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Networking Strategies at College

• Get to know your professors: Communicating with instructors is a valuable way to learn about a career and also get letters of reference if and when needed for a job. Professors can also give you leads on job openings, internships, and research possibilities. Most instructors will readily share information and insights with you. Get to know your instructors. They are a valuable part of your network.
• Check with your college’s alumni office: You may find that some alumni are affiliated with your field of interest and can give you the “inside scoop.”
• Check with classmates: Classmates may or may not share your major, but many of them may have leads that could help you. You could be just one conversation away from a good lead.

Networking Strategies at Work

• Join professional organizations: You can meet many influential people at local and national meetings and events of professional and volunteer organizations. Learn about these organizations. See if they have membership discounts for students or student chapters. Once you are a member, you may have access to membership lists, which can give you prospective access to many new people to network with.
• Volunteer: Volunteering is an excellent way to meet new people who can help you develop your career, even if the organization you are volunteering with is not in your field. Just by working alongside others and working toward common goals, you build relationships that may later serve you in unforeseen and helpful ways.
• Get an internship: Many organizations offer internship positions to college students. Some of these positions are paid, but often they are not. Paid or not, you gain experience relevant to your career, and you potentially make many new contacts.
• Get a part-time job: Working full-time may be your ultimate goal, but you may want to fill in some cracks or crevices by working in a part-time job. Invariably you will meet people who can feasibly help with your networking goals. And you can gain good experience along the way, which can also be noted on your résumé. Check your college career center website. Many have online job boards for full and part-time employment.
• Join a job club: Your career interests may be shared by many others who have organized a club, which can be online or in person. If you don’t find an existing club, consider starting one.
• Attend networking events: There are innumerable professional networking events taking place around the world and also online. Find them listed in magazines, community calendars, newspapers, journals, and at the websites of companies, organizations, and associations.
• Conduct informational interviews: You may initiate contact with people in your chosen field who can tell you about their experiences of entering the field and thriving in it. Many websites have guidance on how to plan and conduct these interviews.

Networking Strategies at Home and Beyond

• Participate in online social media: An explosion of career opportunities awaits you with social media, including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and many more.  Keep your communication ultra-professional at these sites. Peruse magazine articles, and if you find one that’s relevant to your field and it contains names of professionals, you can reach out to them to learn more and get job leads. Realize that social media is public and posting pictures of yourself at parties or commenting in an unbecoming way could cost you an opportunity.
• Ask family members and friends, coworkers, and acquaintances for referrals: Do they know others who might help you? You can start with the question “Who else should I be talking to?”
• Use business cards or networking cards: A printed business card can be an essential tool to help your contacts remember you. Creativity can help in this regard, too. Students often design cards themselves and either hand print them or print them on a home printer.

Your Online Profile

Your online profile is the third component of a compelling marketing campaign. An online profile serves two functions:

1. It’s a marketing tool for a passive job search because the majority of recruiters use online profiles to find qualified candidates.
2. It’s a great networking tool because you can connect with friends, family, former coworkers, and current schoolmates and stay in touch with them easily regardless of where you or they live or work.

Digital Dirt

Various social networking sites allow you to post anything you would like in cyberspace. Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok are a few examples. Four hundred million individuals have a Facebook presence, which enables them to connect and reconnect with current and past friends. Facebook allows you to post pictures of yourself, your friends, your animals, your vacation, and anything else you would like to include. You can post your birthday, your relationship status, your taste in music, and your interests and hobbies.

Most employers look to LinkedIn for professional information because LinkedIn is often described as the professional version of Facebook, but employers still will look at your Facebook profile. When three candidates seem equally suited for a position, researching the candidates on Facebook may provide information that becomes the deciding factor. A word to the wise: ensure that information on your Facebook page can only help your job search. Foul language and inappropriate pictures of social parties and activities will hurt your ability to land the job you are seeking. Do not rely on privacy settings that you think filter individuals from viewing your information because those settings have often failed job search candidates. Facebook remains a wonderful tool for social networking, however, once something is in cyberspace, it is virtually impossible to delete, so proceed with caution and manage your reputation online professionally!

Reputation Management

Websites that allow for professional networking can be a great tool but can also be detrimental. For example, BG, a natural gas company, had an employee post his resume on LinkedIn and clicked the “job seeker” box. When his employer saw this, he was fired for expressing interest in other job opportunities, along with his posting of disparaging comments about his employer. So how exactly can you monitor your online reputation?

Here are some tips:

• Google yourself often and see what the search results return.
• Consider changing your privacy settings in Facebook, so people you are not friends with cannot view your profile.
• Change your setting so you must approve posts that “tag” you.
• Be aware of your company’s policy on posting resumes on websites like LinkedIn.
• Do not talk about work on Twitter, Facebook, or any other social media site.
• Never mention your company name on social media sites.
• Managing your online reputation can make sure that when an employer or potential employer sees your online persona, they are seeing the side you want them to see. It will show them that you represent the company in a positive light, which can enhance career success.

Overview of LinkedIn

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More than 100 million people are on LinkedIn, the leading online network for professional profiles, and that number grows every day. LinkedIn is different from Facebook because it’s intended only for professional use and to focus on your career. To get started with initial online marketing efforts, LinkedIn is a great first step. Visit LinkedIn at  http://www.linkedin.com and follow the tutorial to learn aspects of the site and create an account. Use a thumbnail sketch of your resume for your profile. Create a summary section, and bear in mind that this is a great place to include specific keywords on which recruiters and employers may search (e.g., specific technical skills, languages, brand- name companies, industry knowledge).

Who Can You Link To?

Think of ten to twenty people you’d like to connect to, such as peers from past jobs, friends and family, and peers at school. Go line by line through your resume and think of all the people you know from each stage in your career. You can use the LinkedIn search function to search by school, organization name, or another keyword. As you populate your profile, LinkedIn makes recommendations for people you may know based on the names and keywords you enter. This gives you additional ideas for connections. Send an invitation to the ten to twenty people you’d like to connect to. Write a personalized request to connect that reminds them how you know them, rather than using the generic templates that LinkedIn provides. With LinkedIn, all the people connected to a profile are visible to people who view that profile (you can shut off this feature, but it is helpful for networking, so most people do not). This means that for your connections, you can see their connections. This also means that the more people you are connected to, the more profiles you can view and the more your profile can be viewed. Increasing your connections improves your marketing reach.

On a regular basis, think of another ten to twenty individuals you can connect to and invite them. You can also upload some contact databases and e-mail accounts, such as Outlook, Yahoo!, and Gmail, into LinkedIn so that you can invite your entire existing network in one effort. Some open networkers will link to anyone who requests a link, or they will reach out to a variety of individuals they don’t know and ask to link to them. Either way is acceptable and whether you link only with people you know well or are willing to link with people you barely know or don’t know depends on your comfort level.

Having your resume details in your LinkedIn profile and connecting to people is the bare minimum for an online profile. To have a profile that is a comprehensive marketing platform, you should consider the next sections, which detail additional options.

Include a Professional Picture or Head Shot

Professional photos are helpful as you start meeting more and more people because some people may remember your face more easily than your name or background.

Add a Summary to Your Thumbnail Sketch

Your LinkedIn profile is basically a thumbnail sketch of your resume. It’s important for you to include a short, succinct summary of your background and where you are now in your career. You should also include each school you’ve attended, along with the years. Include each work experience you’ve been a part of, again, along with the years, in a professional and formal format. This will allow individuals to identify how they have known you in the past.

Recommendations

Include recommendations from two or three individuals who know your work. You must be connected to people to request they provide a recommendation. Recommendations help your marketing because they add a dimension to your profile that is not included in your resume.

Groups

Join groups with which you share a common interest. Groups are formed from common associations, such as college alumni groups (be sure to join your school’s alumni group, even if you’ve yet to graduate), industry groups, and mutual goal groups, such as people interested in finding employment. Groups enable you to connect to more people, translating into even more people who will see your profile. You can join approximately fifty groups, and you can also elect to have your group memberships displayed or not displayed on your profile. Tailor your groups to reflect specific professional interests as another way to market yourself as being involved with that area.

Applications

Use LinkedIn applications such as reading lists and presentations or blog sharing. With a paper resume, it is unwieldy to include a lot of attachments, such as a portfolio of your work. An online profile allows you to link to an online collection of your work and create a comprehensive view of everything you offer. You can share a list of what you are reading with the Amazon reading list application. Listing books related to your career targets shows that you are staying current about your target industries and functions and are committed to training and development. You can use the SlideShare application to post PowerPoint presentations you have created. Perhaps as part of a class assignment, you have done a group project that is relevant to prospective employers. If you have a blog and your blog showcases examples of your work, your LinkedIn profile can be set to update with samples of your work whenever you post to your blog. While this level of detail seems onerous for a paper resume, when online it is easy to page through and access as much data as you’d like, so you can offer the reader (in this case, recruiters and employers) much more information.

Maintain Your Profile

Remember that it is important to maintain your online profile. Continually update your LinkedIn profile because as your career grows and changes, so should your LinkedIn profile. Link to new people you meet. Update your summary and experience. LinkedIn also has a status section for more frequent updates that are broadcast to your connections. In this way, you can market your activity on an ongoing basis.