Career Boosting Tip #6: Networking Advice: Be interesting

Whether you are job search networking or business networking, one sure fire way to slow yourself down is to be boring. Boring isn’t memorable. Boring doesn’t entice someone to want to follow-up. Which is not to say that you should be obnoxious, or outrageous.

So, what are some ways to be interesting:

• Be Yourself: What is it about job search and networking? So many people try and morph themselves into what they think they are supposed to be - and that is transparent.
• Be Your Best Self: Not only am I suggesting to be yourself, but go one step further, and be your best self. Turn that light on. Be alive. Be energized and enthusiastic. Increase your wattage and people will notice. 
• Have an Opinion: If you have an opinion, share it.
• Be Plugged In: Usually, your networking is done in context…industry, interest groups, community organizations. Know what is going on. Demonstrate that you aren’t just floating by.
• Genuinely Care: If you do nothing else, remember that networking is about relationship building, and the best way to start a relationship is to take a genuine interest in someone, and ultimately, help them get what they want. Be an active listener. Ask genuine questions and remember the answers.
• Be Useful: Useful people are interesting. Are you a hub of information? A source of other contacts? Is your finger on the pulse of the industry? Can you open doors? Provide expertise? Slam dunk any of the above and you will be interesting.

You get the picture.

Career Boosting Tip #5: Develop Your Top 20 Relationships

Did you think I had given up on this Top 100 list? No way. Just resting. Really.

Remember back in Tip #3 - Mine your Inbox for Contacts, I talked about working through your email archives to keep track of your contacts. Well, here is the follow-on. It applies, of course, to your universe of contacts, not just those people hanging out in your Inbox.

1. Make a list of your best relationships…not necessarily your best friends mind you. I am talking about professional relationships. Those people who know you and who have the power to help your career along. Like who? Well, if you know The Donald, great, but in the real world, think about..

• Individuals within your organization who are 1 or 2 levels above you, within your department and outside of it. You need to have some kind of exposure, or relationship, or at least the very real possibility of creating one over time.
• Peers within your organization who are on the move and in a non-competitive area.
• People who fit the above description but who are external to your organization. Again, you need some kind of contact or relationship with them.
• People whose opinion, input, coaching, and advice you really value.

2. Prioritize your list. If you have more than 20 names, focus in on the Top 20. The people who might be in a position to refer you to new opportunities, assign/hire you to career expanding work, go to bat for you, introduce you to someone interesting, etc.

3. Now, get thinking about how you can be useful to these people. For in-company relationships, it is often about doing great work, delivering on what you promised, and communicating and interacting at their level. Perhaps you can now or in the future refer quality people and companies to your contact. You might be a conduit of information. Get creative. Even if nothing occurs to you, the idea is to reciprocate.

I know. You may be thinking that this all sounds a bit mechanical. Here’s the bottom line. Your whole career can be made by just a few key relationships. Those key relationships may be within your grasp right now. Even if they aren’t, building your networking / relationship building muscle is an important skill.

Career Boosting Tip #3: Mine your Inbox for Contacts

There is no getting around it. Building and nurturing the relationships in your professional network are key career boosting activities.

If you are like me, your email inbox receives a constant flood of emails from all kinds of people. One of the things I find is that I have significant email interactions with some people during the year, but they don’t make it into my contact management system. I have a process for doing so, but it isn’t foolproof. Not only do you not want to lose the details of those contacts, but you might also want to work on building that relationship. Here are 2 steps:

1. Work through your email inbox and see if there are any people you want to stay in touch with who slipped through the cracks in terms of not making it into your contact management system. Look at the From field and the cc field as well. This might include both internal contacts and external. The external might include…

Vendors. Customers. Consultants. Industry experts. Media contacts. Event organizers. Strong candidates. Headhunters. And interesting people you were introduced to, met or had some interaction with.

And don’t forget that cc field. There is often hidden treasure in being included in email conversations with people you didn’t physically interact with. (For example, if you were dealing with Person X, and X sent email communications to you and Person Y and you responded to X and Y responded to X, there might be an opportunity for you to touch base with Y to solidify the contact.)

(BTW, let’s not forget those things called business cards. If you are sitting on a pile of unprocessed business cards, this might be a good time to work through those as well.)

Make sure the contacts you would like to be part of your network are included in your contact management system of choice. If you go through this step, it will also refresh your memory about who you did interact with during the year. Even if they made it into your contact management system, you may have forgotten about them.

2. Flag the people that you think, suspect and hope might help further your career development plans.

And that’s it for now. (For extra points, you might want to send a Happy New Year message to some of these people just to touch base.)

Technorati Tags: career coach, career development, networking

Launching a Blog Series: 100 Career Boosting Tips

Okay. I am putting it out there. I was thinking over the holiday (well a little bit anyway) about the next spurt of blogging activity. I wanted a theme. And in my usual fashion, I came up with something biggish.

How about a 100 Tips on boosting your career? Sound good?

Okay. My pulse just went up a bit as I put that out there, but hey, we grow when we stretch.

100 short tips on boosting your career. Coming up.

My loophole…no deadline. But they are coming.

Tune in and share the series with friends.

Technorati Tags: career change, career coach, career development, career transition, cover letter, interviewing, job search, networking, personal branding, resume writing, resumes

Avoid the Clichés

You…

“I add value.”

“I have great interpersonal and communication skills.”

“I am organized and hard working.”

Hiring person…

“Yawn.”

That’s what the person sitting across the table from you in the interview is doing. And if someone is reading your resume, their eyes probably skipped right over these all too common ideas. If you are in a networking meeting or informational interview, you might have blown your chance to make that important impression.

First, figure out what you really want to say, Then, figure out how you can say it in a way that is profound and believable. Consider providing evidence to back it up…”as evidenced by ______.”

I don’t have proof, but I am certain that the brain of experienced resume readers and interviewers immediately clouds over when it spots or hears these clichés. Even worse, a critical hiring person will dock you for not coming up with something more personal.

More importantly, you need to know exactly what your strengths are and what the benefits of having you on board are. That’s the real issue.

Technorati Tags: career coach, interviewing, job search, networking, resume writing, resumes