You’ve probably head people say that networking is the most effective way to get the job you want, but at the same time find the prospect of networking daunting and something you’re not ready to do yet. If so, taking some time to go through the following steps can help you to get started.

• Be clear about why you should network

One of the challenges that stop people from being proactive in their networking is that they are not clear on what steps to take and how it will benefit them; completing job applications and getting interviews has a very clear cause-and-effect, whereas networking can seem more indirect.

One exercise to do is visualise your career in 5 years’ time if you invested a lot of time networking, and then visualise again if you didn’t invest any time networking. What is the difference between the two projections? If there is a positive difference from networking, write this down so you can refer to it later on for motivation and clarity as needed; if there is no difference, this would suggest that you’re not clear on why you need to network, so it is worth exploring why you should network and how it could help you specifically achieve your career goals. Having a thorough understanding of why you should do something will help you be more motivated to do it. Speaking to Careers Network can help you with this.

• Accept where you are and identify your worries

Acknowledging that you don’t feel ready to network – or that you feel you should, but really don’t’ want to – is an important first place to start, as from here you can then make the necessary steps to move forward.

On a scale of 1-10, rate how ready you are to start networking, and then once you have a score write down the reasons why your score is not higher, and then the reasons why it’s not lower, e.g. because you feel scared that you’ll embarrass yourself but you know that you should network in the future to further your career. Thinking about the reasons why your score is not lower will help you appreciate that you may be more ready then you realised, while listing your worries and concerns will help you identify next steps to take to move forward.

• Make a decision to act and take some small steps

Once you are clear that networking can help you achieve your career goals, refer to your list of worries and concerns and commit to take a small action to address one of these. For example, if you are scared about knowing what to say to a new person, set up a LinkedIn profile and connect with people you know well. Send messages to some of these people asking if you could arrange a time to ask them some questions about their careers. A step that follows on from this would be to send a personalised connection invite to someone you don’t know very well outlining where you met and why you want to connect, and once connected request if you could arrange a time to ask them a couple of questions to get insight on their careers.

There are lots of potential actions you could take depending on what on what your concerns are, but in every case the principle is to identify how ready you are now and where you want to get to and then take regular small actions to move towards there. Which each completed step you may feel more confident and skilled to move forward. Smaller steps are easier to achieve then big actions.

Networking to find a job in a new country

Social media has made it easier to contact and build relationships with people in other countries, even if you don’t already know anyone there. Assuming you are already confident with the language of that country, the below steps can help you get started with securing a job through building your professional network.

Finding the right people to talk to

You can use LinkedIn and Lboro Connect to find people to network with by searching for:

• Lboro alumni who work in the country you are interested in working in (for example, there are 774 alumni who work in the United Arab Emirates). Send them a personalised connection invite stating that you would like to find out more about their career journey to finding a job in this country.
• Recruiters in your industry in the country. They are paid to place people into employment, so it’s worth sending them a personalised connection invite outlining what you are looking for and asking to arrange a conversation to discuss this.
• Company page on LinkedIn for companies you’re interested in working for. Follow these companies to get regularly updates, and also look search employees who work there; ideally you want to find the person who is manager/level above of the role you want to apply for, but if not someone who works in the same department. You can send them a personalised invite to say you’re interested in working there and would like to speak to them to find out more. You can also look for alumni who work there, even if in different departments, to find out about how they got a job there.

Reaching out and knowing what to say

At this stage consider conducting what’s known as ‘informational interviews’ over Skype or phone (or similar) to do career research rather than asking new people directly for a job (unless you are speaking to a recruiter at an agency, then you can be really direct about what sort of job you’re looking for). Doing this will not only help you be more informed but also build relationships with key people who can help you with your career. For example, if you speak to a manager at a company you’re interested in, you could ask them a few questions about how they got to where they are, what advice they’d give someone in your circumstances, what skills are most important in that role and so on. While this may not seem as direct as asking for a job, if you build good relationship and people know what you’re looking for they may let you know about and help with upcoming opportunities and/or help you find opportunities that aren’t widely advertised.

Remember to respect people’s time by stating you’d like a 10 – 20 minute conversation and then try stick to this.

A key question to always ask is ‘what are the most pressing challenges you face?’.  This information can help you understand what’s important to them should you apply for a job there, and if you’re feeling confident spend some time working on proposal or solution that addresses this problem and send it to them. This will impress and can lead to people offering you a job.

At the end of each conversation, it’s worth asking if there’s anyone else you can speak to who could help you. Doing this can help you speak to new people who you would otherwise not have known.

In addition, finding people who have made the same transition from either Loughborough or your home country to working in your country of choice can help as you learn from their experiences and get first hand advice.

Always follow up your discussion with a thank you email. Make notes about the conversation and follow up any action points. Use discretion and consider what should and shouldn’t be divulged to other people in your network, particularly if you are approaching rival organisations.

More information on informational interviews can be found at: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/media/wwwlboroacuk/external/content/services/careersandemployabilitycentre/downloads/advice/Networking%20for%20career%20planning%20and%20job%20search.pdf

Christian Jameson-Warren