Networking is something that has been heavily emphasized throughout my college career so far. No matter what class I am in or who I talk to about potential career paths, networking is always brought up. Whether it be staying after class to talk to your professors, attending career fairs, attending virtual information sessions, or cold emailing and messaging people on LinkedIn – these are all many different ways that you can network. The importance of this is one of the keys of landing a job and building your knowledge within your own desired field.
During the morning, we had the opportunity to sit it on a lecture by Rob Cullen in which he talked about the benefits of networking while also giving us many tips and tricks. Many networking techniques that were discussed are also universal such as giving a nice firm handshake, going on coffee chats, and leaving an impression with small talk. He emphasized that when you first begin to network with someone, you do not go straight into talking business. Everything is a two way street and what you do should also benefit them. Something that was helpful to me that he talked about was going back and reconnecting and refreshing your connections, similar to a way like catching up. Personally, I have a lot of connections on LinkedIn that I have not talked to in a while and to be able to shoot a small message to catch up would seem pretty beneficial to me and to them as there are also lots of updates with me.
Some new techniques that I was able to learn today was where to put your name tag and that you should always place it on the shoulder you are giving the handshake. Whenever I get a name tag, I usually just throw it on somewhere on my shirt and I never really realized the little things such as putting it on your right shoulder will make it easier for the other person to read and see. Another technique that was talked about was that when you are talking in a group in a networking event is to always keep the circle open so that it allows more people to join and collaborate. By having your circle closed off, it shows that you are not very welcoming to newcomers. Both of these small techniques are something that I have never really thought about until today.
