Person-to-person job searching is the hands-down preferred method. It’s just that most people think networking works all by itself. They’ll go to association meetings and ask about vacancies or openings. They’ll collect business cards and wish they had some realistic good reason to talk to those people. They’ll haphazardly pass out resumes. They hope they’ll be remembered when a vacancy or opening turns up.
To avoid this random, billiard-ball-style networking, you need a written and re-searched plan of whom you want to talk to, how you can make or save them a bundle, what’s going on in their industry that you can key into, and a thought-out rationale and method to get in to see them face to face. You need a clear agenda for each meeting including knowing how to ask for further contacts to continue your networking plan.
Consider this too, poor networking is worse than no networking. Meeting people is one thing; making the correct impression is another. That you can meet a lot of people and have them talk with you doesn’t mean you’re getting closer to a new job. If people aren’t impressed, if they think you’re too arrogant, too pushy, too meek, too timid, too uninformed, not committed enough, too confused, too anything, all that a hundred networking contacts will do is generate a hundred poor impressions.
So, be thoughtful in creating your network and tapping into it for job search help. Most importantly, study success and know what you want.
The art of conversation is first and foremost about listening and enjoying conversation with no other objective in mind but for its own sake.
