|
|
|
by Margaret Steen, for Yahoo! HotJobs
If you needed to find a new job, how many people could you turn to for help? If
the answer is "not many," you may need to upgrade your professional network.
"Maintaining a network should be a routine part of your career development
strategy, not just something you turn toward in a career crisis," said Janet
Civitelli, associate director of University Career Services at the University of
Houston, who works with both students and alumni.
Civitelli and other experts offer these questions for assessing the health of
your network:
1. How many former co-workers' contact information do you have?
Focus particularly on your peers and people above you in the organization.
The more people you're in touch with, the better. If you need to beef up the
number of people in your network, a tool like LinkedIn can help, both with
searching and with keeping up with former colleagues' job moves.
2. Does your network include a handful of people who could serve as references?
These people need to be willing to recommend you -- and they need to know your
work well. "References can't be vaguely positive," Civitelli said.
If you can't think of four to six good reference candidates, you need to step up
your networking to make sure people you work with know about your achievements.
3. How many of your contacts have you communicated with in the past six months?
This is a measure of your active network.
"You don't need to talk to everyone in your network every three minutes," said
Richard Phillips, owner of Advantage Career Solutions. But you should check in
regularly, even if you just send a brief email saying you hope all is well. That
way, when you do need to ask for job-hunting help, it will be "emotionally much
easier" to make the contact.
4. Have you had lunch or coffee with someone from your network in the past
month?
Make a point of meeting in person with a former colleague or another
professional connection every few weeks.
5. Have you attended a professional event recently?
Attending professional conferences will help you expand your network beyond
former colleagues. Becoming active in a professional association will also boost
your resume.
6. Have you added any professional contacts in the past month?
Your network needs to grow in order to stay vital. Try to add new contacts --
either by getting back in touch with former colleagues or by meeting new people
-- frequently.
7. Are you networking "outside the box" -- that is, making connections beyond
your former colleagues and friends?
Job opportunities can arise from unexpected sources. Marianne Adoradio, a career
counselor in Silicon Valley, recommends expanding your network to include some
people outside your industry and at different stages of their careers, who can
tell you about trends and opportunities you might not otherwise hear about.
8. When your professional contacts get in touch with you, do you answer?
"People just kind of steer away from you if you're not responding," Adoradio
said.
What if a contact is asking for job leads and you don't have any? "You do have
the ability to offer something of great value," Phillips said: encouragement.
This will also increase the chances that that person will help you sometime in
the future.
Follow one of these Yahoo! HotJobs accounts on Twitter for jobs in selected
metro regions, and you'll get "tweets" when a relevant new job is posted.
Tags:
8 Questions to Assess
-
Your Professional Network's Strength |
