Use Your Network!
It’s the key to your future.
You are 54 times more like to get hired through a referral. Think about that for a minute, I said times, not percent, TIMES. It’s a really astonishing number, and that number is actually three years old! I would not be surprised in the least if it has gone up in today’s economy. So how do you make that number work to your advantage? Networking, it’s the key to your future. Whether you are recently graduated, or a seasoned veteran; networking is how you are going to get you next job.
Let me explain why this works. First off, now more then ever, employers are getting 100′s of resume’s for any given position (no matter what the level). The best and most effective way to get noticed in that stack is if someone walks over to the the hiring manager or HR person and says “Here, this person rocks, you need to talk to them.” People like working with known entities, when someone can speak on your behalf it takes a huge amount of guess work and worry off the hiring person’s mind. Secondly, you are going to hear of more opportunities through your network, and you can enlist your network to keep an eye out for you in their respective companies, thus increasing your chances of finding the perfect job for you.
So how does this work? Here are 5 easy steps to connect with your network:
- Make a list of everyone you know, and where they work.
- If you aren’t on LinkedIn, sign up. You can see my profile to get an idea of how it looks here: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rogersadam.
- Join user groups, you can find them on yahoo, google, and LinkedIn. Doing this will allow you to connect with people with similar skill sets and a lot of the time you will see jobs posted specifically for the skill set of the group.
- Always check your network first before applying for a job. Not only will you find that you probably know someone who works there, but you may also find you know someone who knows someone who works at the company you are trying to get into.
- Don’t be afraid to use your network and ask people for help. You’ve connected with these people for a reason, because you trust them. They want to help you out, trust me.
Those are the basics, if you do these 5 things, you’ll be off to great start. Your network is powerful; use it!
