You Need to Do More Networking

"Hey man, watcha up to?"


"Oh, not much, just doing some networking."

"So... wait... what exactly are you doing?"

"Just networking, man"

"But... what's..."

Ever felt like everyone is saying how valuable networking is, but nobody is defining it?

When you hear that you need to "network more" or "network better" what do you do???

Well here is one example of how to network better and more.

Step 1:  Choose a company or profession or organization that you want to know more about, get an opportunity with, or have some other interest in.

Step 2:  Sign up for LinkedIn, and join all the groups you can find that are relevant to your interests.

Step 3:  Search for people, and type in "[company name]" and wait for results.

Step 4:  Anyone that pops up in the results with a little bubble next to their name that says, "group" you can send a personal message to.

Step 5:  Craft a well worded, intelligent sounding personal message that
          a) introduces yourself
          b) Expresses interest
          c) Seeks for further communication through e-mail or phone

Step 6:  Send your message to every person you possibly can that is related to your passion or company

Step 7:  Wait for responses, when they do come, make sure you respond promptly with insightful questions on the company, the experience of the individual, the area of location, etc.

Step 8:  If they offer to help, ask them to help by refining your resume.  Also, if they offer to receive phone calls, make sure you call them (of course, with prepared questions)

Step 9:  If they end up reviewing and making suggestions on your resume, do your best to implement the changes that they gave you and then send it back to them with a message that states how thankful you are and that you wanted to show them the results of their suggestions.

Step 10:  At this point, the magic will happen.  That is not to say that every time you get here people will hire you or give you what you want, but they will have sufficient contact with you to make a far better judgement than with one piece of paper.

Enjoy.