Networking is crucial for career development and personal growth. It is the key to communicating with professionals and letting people know about one’s competencies and interests.
Introverts find it difficult to build connections and face real challenges in establishing and maintaining social networks. Consequently, they may miss opportunities to find jobs, especially when they are new graduates.
The good news is that networking strategies for new graduates help introverts enter the workforce.
This article provides practical strategies for developing efficient networking skills. It aims to help readers understand how to effectively connect with others, even when facing challenges such as introversion or being new to the professional world. So, face your fears of networking!
The importance of networking
Networking offers uncounted advantages for people on professional and personal levels. For new graduates, it allows them to conquer the labor market, gain knowledge about their careers, and enhance their personality and skills.
Finding job opportunities
Career networking skills are used by new graduates to find jobs. It involves reaching out to your connections to navigate job opportunities. It is an effective informal way to get informed of new vacancies rather than depending on advertisements.
Yes, not all job opportunities are advertised. Some are exclusive to acquaintances and recommendations, usually called a “hidden market.” Efficient networking techniques can help new graduates explore these opportunities.
Networking makes you seen and visible. It is a resource pool that gives people access to experts and practitioners. Even after getting a job, this visibility strengthens your influence and reputation, allowing you to get promotions and higher salaries.
Asking for advice and mentorship
As a new graduate, the diversified and wide networks allow you to learn more about your career path. You can ask about courses, graduate degrees, resources, and technical details.
Networks allow a smooth flow of information among connections, allowing value exchange. Through talks, calls, and social media networking, you can update yourself with industry trends.
Personal development
Networking offers new graduates an opportunity to develop their personality. It boosts their confidence, improves communication skills, and expands social circles.
By establishing a supportive network, you will gradually gain confidence and the ability to express yourself, thus improving your communication skills. These characteristics are important for you as a new graduate to increase your opportunities in securing job posts.
Developing efficient networking skills
You need to know that networking is not magic, so you must exert effort to build your network and enhance your skills. Here are some important networking tips and tricks you need to put into practice:
Start with a strategy
Creating a professional network from scratch doesn’t come naturally for a lot of people. You need to do it systematically to get the best results.
Instead of looking at it like an insurmountable task, what about considering networking as your graduation project? One that needs a talented project manager who can set SMART goals, track their progress, and evaluate their efforts to upgrade their performance.
This calls for working on your project management skills. The very first step is setting up your SMART networking goals, for example:
- Specific. Determine exactly what you want to achieve from networking. If you want to work in a multinational company, you need to specify the number of people you want to connect with, such as the recruitment team and department managers.
- Measurable. You need to quantify your goals for example, the number of connection requests, discussions, calls, events, or messages.
- Attainable. Networking goals are usually challenging, but they are achievable through the proper planning and execution. For example, you cannot set a goal of networking with 100 individuals, but ten may be reasonable. There is no rule about an ideal number of networks; it depends on the context and your skills.
- Relevant. Your networking goals must encompass relevant steps. If you’d like to work in the engineering field, why waste time and effort networking with those in the medical field?
- Time-bound: Your networking goal must have a start date and deadline.
Read more: Goal-Setting: Why You Should Set Goals
Networking must align with your career goals. You must identify your priorities in your networking efforts, whether professors, researchers, doctors, or others relevant to your field. You don’t need to waste time establishing networking in medical circles while pursuing engineering positions.
However, you must realize that a network does not guarantee an immediate job. But it can open the door for future opportunities. So, widen your scope while you network and focus on long-term goals.
When you start implementing your goals, you need to track your progress and monitor the trend of your networking efforts. Is your network expanding or shrinking? Have you achieved your SMART goals? If not, you can adjust your implementation and rethink your strategy. This is usually called corrective measures.
For example, if you decide to attend certain networking events and set a goal to communicate with CEOs of companies, but when you go, you will find that the top management does not usually attend such events. So, your corrective measure is to find alternative events or clubs to look for your network target.
Create meaningful connections
Turning initial contacts into meaningful relationships is essential. Life is full of surprises; today’s connection may be tomorrow’s helper. So, you need to follow up and keep in touch with your connections as much as you can. For example, send them greeting cards on national and religious occasions.
On the other hand, you don’t need to make connections with very strong ties. It is better to keep weak connections with a larger number of people rather than putting all effort into making strong connections with a smaller number of people. It is called the “strength in weak ties.”
This is called the “art of authentic networking,” in other words, going beyond normal connections. It creates genuine relationships based on shared values, respect, and sincerity. Rather than “transactional networking,” which depends on a short-term connection for a short period, this connection ends as soon as the transaction is done.
Read more: Mastering the Art of Authentic Networking
You can work on your rapport-building skills for efficient networking, for example.
- Remembering names. Grabbing people’s attention in your conversation by calling them with their names.
- Active listening. Engaging with the other side through asking them questions, showing interest, and being respectful.
- Body language. Maintain consistent and active body language, such as maintaining eye contact and refraining from checking your phone.
Motivate yourself
Keeping and developing your network while looking for a job is not easy. It requires a high level of self-direction and motivation skills. You have to be proactive, initiate conversations, and establish networks.
Read more: How Increased Motivation Can Mean Increased Productivity
You can maintain higher levels of motivation if you control your internal self-talk. Consistently tell yourself your networking goals and diversify the content of your self-talk according to your situation.
For example, if you feel down, tell yourself motivating phrases such as “you can do it,” and if you feel your mood needs alleviation, you may say, “I feel good.”
Use professional networking platforms
Professional networking platforms are like social media platforms specifically dedicated to professional networking. It is a medium for users to contact individuals.
It is a good place for new graduates, especially introverts, to contact colleagues and professionals in the same industry to discuss industry trends and increase engagement among professional communities.
These networks have a lot of features that you can benefit from, such as chatting and posting updates and comments.
To make the best use of these networking sites:
- Include complete information. Make sure to include all information about yourself, your education, interests, and work experience so people with similar interests can connect with you.
- Post consistently. Keep posting updated information and achievements on your profiles.
- Prioritize connections. Know the people you need to connect with to avoid making your home feed crowded with non-relevant content.
- Be mindful. You need to use these networks wisely to not get addicted to them.
Read more: Yes, Social Media Productivity is a Thing
If you want to be influential in your social network, i.e., people will wait for your content and postings and be inspired by them, so you need to consider boosting your content creation skills.
- Add value. Create valuable content to attract readers from your network. This content can include industry trends, tips and tricks, review articles, or publications.
- Diversify. You should diversify the format of your content postings among posts, articles, photos, videos, and documents.
- Tailor your content. Make your creations suit your network goals. In other words, if you want to network with professionals in a certain field, you must write things they must read and follow.
These skills help you establish a unique identity, gain peer recognition, and enlarge your network.
In conclusion
Networking offers new graduates many opportunities to develop their skills and knowledge and get jobs, especially from hidden job markets. Many fresh graduates suffer from introversion, which can hinder them from benefiting from networking pros.
You need to develop a well-designed plan to network with people who would really help you throughout your career. You need to ensure your online visibility on professional networks. Networking is a bi-dimensional process from which all parties usually benefit to ensure sustainability. So, you need to offer value to your connections.
It is time to conquer your fear and explore how networking can support your career and personal growth.
If you would like to see more resources on efficient networking, check out the Personal Productivity Science Labs. The lab uses the research of the Institute for Life Management Science to produce courses, certifications, podcasts, videos, and other tools. Visit the Personal Productivity Science Labs today.
Photo by wavebreakmedia_micro on Freepik