Three Ways to Network Without Getting Sweaty Palms
You read about an event nearby for people with your interest — be it environmental, professional, social, or political — and you show up for the event because you know you have to network.
When you arrive, the room is filled with people who seem to know each other: talking animatedly, getting food and drink, exchanging business cards. Your palms are getting sweaty. How are you going to break in? Are you really the only one here who knows no one else in the room?
Of course not. If they knew each other, no one would need to exchange those business cards.
Networking is a necessity in our time. Even people with full-time jobs need a Plan B for when the company decides to lay off 50 or 5,000 people. And if you want to switch to a different company or a whole new career, you can benefit from knowing someone who can help you cross that bridge.
How do you break in and become one of the people who seem to be networking with ease? Here are three easy ways to network without getting sweaty palms.
Volunteer to Help
Someone has to find a location for the next group event. Someone has to put out the food and drink. Someone else has to refresh the group’s web site, send out press releases, or write and publish the newsletter. That person could be you. Most organizations are more than happy to welcome another pair of hands, so you can make one good contact by offering your services. And that contact will lead to others, in a way that is less intimidating and less artificial.
Which is easier, volunteering to help with an event or walking up to strangers to introduce yourself with your elevator pitch, while juggling your business cards and your plate of raw carrots and hummus?
The downside: Don’t become so valuable as a volunteer that you can’t break away when your volunteering begins to take more time and energy than it is giving you. You’ll know it’s time to go when you find yourself resenting the very people that you meant to help. That resentment can be apparent, no matter how you school yourself.
Use the Internet
Join email groups such as Yahoo Groups, Google Groups, and other electronic mailing lists for your interest. Track down Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and other social-media pages that will get you involved in the conversations and the communities that you want to participate in. Tamar Weinberg’s Ultimate Social Media Etiquette Handbook has tips on how to use these tools and others.
Lurk for a while and observe the group members’ behavior: Is the style of engagement casual or formal? What topics do people not discuss? Is there a particular political bent?
Introduce yourself to the group online. Add a tag line to your email signature or social-media page that gives your contact info and a one-line summary of what you do: perhaps “Human resources manager,” “Award-winning developer,” or “Pastry chef.” Some people add a slogan: “Creating the finest pastries west of Paris.” Showing a little personality is good, but avoid being too clever. It’s easy to appear self-absorbed.
The downside: You leave an electronic trail of your thoughts, feelings, and attitude toward life. If you act like an idiot on the Internet, someone — and maybe many people — will know that you have. If you’re lucky, someone will tell you about it, and you can either delete the offending post or apologize publicly — or both. (Note: Thank them for calling this to your attention. They have done you a favor, though gratitude may not be your initial response.)
Assume that nothing that you do on the Web is private: Emails can be forwarded and are stored for years in groups; people may remember your name in entirely the wrong light (“Hmmph, some editor, she can’t even spell…”); a search engine can store or cache the web page that you deleted. No privacy setting can assure that your slip-ups don’t travel the world. The Internet is a megaphone. What you say into the mouthpiece will carry.
Do a Good Job Where You Are Now
Build good will, share resources, offer to help. Assume that others you work with are doing the best they can. If you can help them look good, you will look good as well. And if your colleague compliments you on the quality of your work, ask him or her to tell your manager about your good work.
A wise person once said that you should always treat well the people that you meet on your way up the career ladder, because you are likely to meet them again on your way back down. You never know who will help you get that next job.
The downside: Some people will respond to your attempts to help with coldness or suspicion. Check with a trusted colleague to see whether your perceptions are justified: Is this person behaving badly toward you in particular, or is he or she being disagreeable because of a chronically ill partner or child at home? Context is everything.
Monitor how much you help others, and make sure that you continue to fulfill your core functions to the best of your ability. Don’t spread yourself too thin.
See you at the next event, my friend.
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Tamar Weinberg, The Ultimate Social Media Etiquette Handbook
Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox: Write for Reuse
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