Network like a PRO

Still focusing on my “finding a job asap” series, I wanted to give some hints on how to network in a way to get a NET and WORK. 

What all people including me generally do is either UNDER network or OVER network. 
I explain …UNDER network happens when we have a nice job, life is cool , a do not want to bother attitude . We forget to answer that silly in-mail in linked in , we turn down all work-lated invitations, we go to work in the morning and come back to sleep and spend our weekends shopping ( only women you say ? OK whatever)

Then there is the OVER networking situation where we are looking desperately for a job and we’ve read somewhere that networking is THE thing. We suddenly bombard contacts with out of the blue emails in all shades of desperate tones. We go to this one-night networking event with tons of business cards and almost staple our resume to them. Or we do the “Hi do you have a job for me” kind of introductions.

So here are a few thoughts that I found particularly interesting about networking. I got my first job in PR through networking. I just got a call one day from the owner whom I met in some sort of event two years before and I was not expecting it at all. You want to be an effective networker, go about it with no expectations, or at most to enjoy your time and talk and meet new people.

Network like a wedding crasher …My best one so far! Last week I found a free HR training event to which I subscribed (may be I got accepted because I subscribed as a researcher and got mistaken for a headhunter). Obviously, at some point in the training, I had to crack a joke that I was only there to know how HR managers look for candidates. But after 3 days of training, I got so many HR friends that I wouldn’t have expected in a lifetime. The lesson I learned though was that going for multidisciplinary training for 3 days help a lot in networking because by the time you show up on the second-day introductions are so much easier even if you are the utmost person freak.

Don’t underestimate any event whatsoever. My most unexpected networking event was when I took my son to a birthday party almost dragging my feet. Turns out the best hour I have ever spent with people from different corporate ranks and backgrounds. 

To wrap up, I still didn’t land my next job :) so if you want to take my advice up here take it with a pinch of salt.

Dearly yours,