The Importance of Building a Network for Your Job Search

The Importance of Networking as a part of your Job Search

This article addresses the importance of developing a network style approach to the job search process. A network is a group of people brought together by one person or several people to accomplish a specific goal or purpose.

Most of us are familiar with network marketing organizations and how they recruit to grow their business. For example, you recruit three people - each of them recruits three people - and each of them recruits three more people, and so on. If you carry this out three generations you have recruited approx. 120 people. Each of these individuals knows people in various industries, many of them with influence over the hiring process. So with the above example it is easy to see how important networking is. 

It is widely accepted and documented that nearly 85% of all jobs are filled through the process of networking, and a large percentage of these positions are never posted. Based on this, networking becomes the best technique that we can implement into our job search process.

The work Networking, is just that, work.  Some reasons Networking is difficult for most of us is because it forces us out of our comfort zone, and also makes it necessary for us to develop the ability to talk freely about our talents and skills. Many of us are somewhat timid when it comes to talking about ourselves, in fact most of us avoid this because we don’t want to appear to be bragging about ourselves.  Because of these feelings, and others it makes the networking process a scary activity. The effective setting of goals and working to accomplish these goals helps us to overcome this fear and causes us to focus on the process.

Below are basic goals and steps that will assist in building a network for your job search:

GOALS

1.     Begin by identifying a specific career or job you want.

2.     Identify associates, friends, family, and colleagues who may know something about that specific job and make a list with each of their contact information.

3.     Ask yourself the following questions;

a.      Who do I know who knows something about the career I have chosen?

b.     Who do I know that has influence?

c.      Who do I know who knows a lot of people?

4.     Practice the 10 – 2 – 2 process.

a.      Make 10 contacts per day. (A contact is anyone you make contact with, in person, over the phone, or internet contact).

b.     Get 2 referrals each day from the contacts you make, (10 Contacts = 20 Referrals per day).

c.      Set up 2 Face-to-Face appointments per day, (Face-to-Face is when you set up an informational interview, a visit with a hiring manager, or an activity where you have an appointment related to your job search).

5.     Keep good records, follow up is very important in the networking process. There have been many jobs given to someone else because one candidate failed to keep accurate records and properly follow up on every lead.

When networking it is very important to be dressed for an interview, that means for men, dress slacks, dress shirt (white is preferred) with tie, and shined shoes. It is surprising how many hiring managers will look at your shoes. It’s important to have proper fitting clothes. That means if it has been ten years since you bought dress clothes they might be too small. When your belly is making your shirt buttons scream in pain you need a larger shirt. Small clothes make you look unprofessional and translate into someone who isn’t focused on details.

For women ”business best business dress” is acceptable.  Remember to keep the skirt length at the knee and the neck line high enough to keep the interviewer focused on your eyes.  Your goal is to be hired for your skills not you high skirt and low cut neck line.  When a women is being interviewed who has a low cut neck line the interviewer is thinking, dressing like that would be a distraction to the other employees.

Remember when you are looking for a job it is an eight hour a day process. If you work only six hours then your job search will be exponentially lengthened.

Whatever you do have fun with the process and I wish you the best of luck in your search.

“Luck is where Preparation and Opportunity meet”.  By Dr. Wayne W. Dyre