Career Networking Tips:
Get in the Group!

One of my favourite career networking tips that I share with clients and friends is to get more involved with group activities of all kinds.

Participating in groups is one of the easiest, least anxiety-producing and most enjoyable ways to enhance your job networking.

Introduce yourself in a very natural, relaxed way when in groups and you’ll make many new professional friends this way.

Attend Courses, Workshops and Conferences

Attending free or low-cost courses and workshops are great for networking, and also help prevent you from becoming isolated during your job search.

University degree programs, college diplomas or certificates and continuing education credits require a longer period of time and commitment but are also excellent.

Practice firms along with university and college co-op programs are additional powerful ways to work on groups or teams and get great work experience that employers respect.

To find practice firms in your area, you could contact your local employment services office or try doing an internet search.

Job Search and Career Development Workshops

Attend any job search or career development workshops that you can fit into your job search schedule and that are available in your area. You can meet new people and get more career networking tips from both the facilitators and other students.

These group events are particularly helpful because they offer you both helpful information and the empathic support of your fellow job searchers who are struggling with many of the same sort of challenges that you currently face.

You can also share your own career networking tips, skills and experiences with them.

Class work “opens us up” and the higher learning environment is a great place to build new professional relationships. Even if the course teacher or curriculum is poor, you have a great opportunity to meet some important networking contacts there.

Meet as Many People as You Can!

If you’re involved in a group that meets more than once such as an educational class, be sure to sit in a different chair each time you return to a weekly class or any regular group you belong to.

Make it a point to go out of your way to meet everyone in the group by sitting next to someone unfamiliar to you each time. Don’t always sit with the “same old people.” :-)

Introduce yourself using your introductory statement, give everyone you meet your business card and ask for their card or contact information in return.

Stay in touch with them and do whatever you can to help them reach their job search and career goals and to continue to exchange the best of your career networking tips.

Attend Conferences - for Networking, not Higher Learning

You can find out about upcoming conferences from your professional association.

Conferences are for networking, They are actually very well designed to make in-person meetings easy to schedule for people who live in different cities or countries. That’s right! Conferences are not valued so much for learning – they’re primarily good for networking!

Get Involved with Your Professional Association

Professional associations exist to help you and others in your field to better themselves professionally and they want to hear from you!

The larger the association or profession, the more power it has to represent its professionals and their customers or clients.

For more career networking tips specific to your particular field, get involved with your professional association and/or college/regulatory body.

You could volunteer by sitting on a working committee, or assisting in the planning and running of an annual conference or member meeting.

In offering to help, you can gain the support of people working there including people who carry considerable influence in your field.

Search for your professional association on the internet, then call them by phone and ask if there is anyone there who can offer you an informational interview. Ask them if they have any events coming up and how you can take part in them

Hobbies and Shared Personal Interests

Get more involved in personal groups and activities that interest you, including hobbies. This is a huge advantage for you because you can easily build rapport and relationships with other group members who share at least one of your passions.

Given that these people already share an exciting life interest with you, they feel a certain kinship with you and likely want to help you. As a result of these shared interests, someone there could offer you a crucial link with someone they know in your field, or important career networking tips.

Friendly Cultural Connections

In a similar way, consider connecting with people from your country and/or culture of origin. This can be particularly helpful for newcomers or new immigrants.

You share a common understanding and many similar values with people from your ethno-cultural group, and they are likely to want to help you succeed and perhaps become your career mentor.

At the very least, they may offer you some career networking tips from reflecting upon the struggle that they or their close family members endured when they first settled here.

Find out if there are any cultural associations in your city or local area. Participating in related cultural celebrations, festivals and other special events is also a good idea. You can meet people there and introduce yourself.

Online Networking Groups

Online networking groups are yet another great networking resource. Many great personal and business networking sites exist including the major social networking sites as well as my personal favourite, the meetup.com job networking groups page.

These group contacts are most effective if you can develop an initial online chat into an eventual in-person meeting.

Other Group Opportunities

Special events such as grand openings and open houses of various kinds are ideal for networking because everyone’s in a good mood and happy to see you!

You’re already helping them just by being there and supporting their event. So they’re likely to want to help you in return.

The same goes for volunteering which can also often happen in a team or other group setting.

Sporting events – whether you are a spectator or participant – also hold promise for you to meet new people who can help you. They tend to be light-hearted, friendly and social in nature.

Better Still, Organize Your Own Groups!

A final option is to share your own career networking tips through organizing your own networking groups.

Provide more service and reap more rewards as a result, as a natural consequence of acting to help others.

Take the lead! In what way can you take a leadership or organizing role – even a small one – in your field of interest or elsewhere? Leaders and organizers of all kinds tend to build and maintain very strong professional networks. In this way you can easily share great career networking tips with others.

In addition to attending courses and workshops, you could also host and/or facilitate your own on a topic that is of great interest to you or that you are quite knowledgeable about.

You could teach a workshop or a part-time or full-time course, either on your own or through a school.

You could organize a business networking group through a website such as meetup.com and meet once a week or once a month for breakfast, lunch, coffee or dinner.

You could write an informative and helpful website and/or newsletter to provide others with career networking tips or other helpful information on a variety of topics, and encourage them to keep in touch with you and the other subscription/group members.

If you can take on one or more of these leadership roles, you'll be providing more service to others, through which you will likely be richly rewarded with a much stronger network.

Return from Career Networking Tips to Networking Skills Hub Page

Return from Career Networking Tips to Job Search Coach Home Page