Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Network Like You Mean It (Part 2)

So you’ve contacted the people that you know and sat down with them for a brief chat about the state of the job market, where to find leads and who to contact. Now you’ve got a list of new contacts. (If you met with 5 people, you should have between 15 and 20 new contacts.)

Now comes the hard part. You need to do a little cold-calling or cold-e-mailing. Contact the person and tell them who your connection was, what you are doing and would they have 10 minutes to spare you. Try something like this:

Hi TKTK my name’s KT and ABC suggested I give you a call. I’m a recent graduate and am trying to touch base with professionals in the industry who can offer me advice for my job search and the current market.

Again, keep it short and to the point. If e-mailing, do not send along your resume, clips, etc... That’s what the meeting is for. You don’t want to inundate them with information and lengthly messages.

When you have the informational interview with these people approach it as you did with the first group. Also, don’t leave until you get 3 more contacts from this new person. That way each informational interview you have will add to your list of names and, more importantly, it will get your name out into the market place.

Sidenote: I forgot to mention this in the first post, but when you get home from one of these meetings, write down anything important/useful that was said on the looseleaf page with your contact’s name at the top.

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