Your first networking job is to let just about everyone you can think of know that you are looking for work. For people who have recently been terminated, this is often a daunting task. But the longer you put it off, the harder it will become. If necessary, keep reminding yourself that very, very, very few successful people have made it through life without having lost jobs involuntarily. Most, in fact, have plenty of rejection stories to tell, from being rejected by schools to being ejected from jobs. As one retired CEO of a large manufacturing company said to me during a recent interview, "Anyone who has never been fired has probably never had the guts to take any risks and probably should have been fired many times over."
In your networking, you will doubtless run into people who will implicitly or explicitly blame you for being out of work. They'll suggest variously that you were wrong to take that job to begin with or that if you had played your cards right, you would still have it or that you should have seen the handwriting on the wall long ago and left before being shown the door. Often these people will be people close to you, like parents, in laws, siblings, spouses, or lovers, which will make their blaming all the more difficult to bear. Take a deep breath, look them in the eye, and say calmly, "Well, unfortunately, that's water over the dam at this point, and I'd like your help in getting on with my life. Here's what you could do for me. ..."
Try to avoid arguing with them. Doing so will probably just make you feel angrier and stand in the way of your getting the real help they may be able to offer. Instead of arguing, try to engage them in the problem solving process of finding new employment. Ask them to help you think of people with whom you might talk about jobs. Share with them some of the options you are considering and invite them to brainstorm with you about how to investigate them. Ask them about their own experiences of losing or changing jobs and get them to describe some of the search techniques they found helpful. Encourage them to share their experiences and to provide concrete information or resources that may be useful to you.
Begin your networking close to home, and tackle the task systematically. Set up a network worksheet. Then sit down and work on it until you have filled in absolutely as many names as you can. Under the heading "professional helpers" include people like your accountant, physician, dentist, therapist, financial adviser, minister or rabbi, and so on. Next, decide for each whether to make your initial contact by phone or in writing.
There are no hard and fast rules for determining which approach is best in any given case; what is most appropriate depends on the closeness of your current relationship, your past patterns of communication, what sort of help you are seeking, and your personal preferences concerning phoning versus writing. In general, however, plan to follow up your initial contact with the other mode of communication; that is, if you make your first contact by phone, follow up with a note or letter, and if you write first, follow up with a phone call.
Never plan to simply sit and wait for contacts to get back to you again after your initial communication, no matter what form that communication takes. One of the keys to successful networking is to keep active those portions of the net you have already jiggled while continuing to activate new portions. Whenever you think "contact" (whether it be for the first or the fifth time) think "follow up." Be professional about following up even with relatives and friends your courtesy will be appreciated by all those who aid you in your quest.
Staying connected takes creativity as well as good record keeping and thoughtfulness. You don't want to seem like a pest, so you will sometimes have to be inventive in discovering occasions for correspondence and conversation. Thank you notes are an obvious means of following up, but there are others as well. As you conduct your library research, you will come across articles, news items, and books related to topics you have discussed in interviews, and you can use them as opportunities to get back to your contacts. Photocopy items of interest and send them along with a calling card and a brief note reminding your contact of your discussion.
The degree of formality in such notes should depend on your relationship to the receiver, the warmth of your last communication, your personal style, and the personal style of the person to whom they are addressed. They need not be typed as long as you have legible handwriting. Whether you push the receiver for further action in such notes is a tricky judgment call. You might, for example, add a paragraph saying something like:
The more I learn about venture capital firms, the more eager I become to work for ABC, Inc. If any opportunities open up, please let me know.
You can also follow up with notes or letters updating contacts on the progress of your search. If your contact gave you names of additional people with whom to get in touch, write or call after talking with them. Likewise, if your situation changes for example, if you decide to take some courses or broaden your search to other geographical areas let previous contacts know. Beware, however, of becoming too casual or un business like with contacts. It is not appropriate in most cases to write notes (or make phone calls) that say something on the order of:
Hi! It's been a couple of months since we got together, and I just thought I'd drop a line to see how you're doing. Let me hear from you.
Indirection is the major flaw in the above sample. The note serves no purpose and suggests that you wrote (or called) mainly because you happened to have nothing better to do for the moment.
Make a contract with yourself establishing a minimum number of networking calls and letters for each day or each week. Depending on how stressful or enjoyable you find networking, you may want to set yourself a minimum of 2 a day or 10 a day. As your search progresses, you may want to modify your minimum, but require yourself to stick to the one you've set until you deliberately decide on a different one.
To keep track of your contacts and follow ups, get a pack of 4" X 6" or 5" X 7" index cards (3" X 5" cards are too small for this purpose), a box to keep them in, and a set of alphabetical dividers. Fill out a card for each contact. You should cross reference your file according to organizational affiliation: include a card for each organization at which you have established one or more contacts. On it, record the names of all the individual contacts for whom you have separate cards elsewhere in your file. Be scrupulous about annotating cards each time you get in touch with someone. Don't trust your memory if you're doing a good job of networking, you will not have the memory capacity to recall the dates and details of all your phone calls and correspondence.
Another key to successful networking is to continually build your network. Every time you establish contact with someone new, ask him or her for the names of at least two or three other people with whom you might get in touch. At first you might feel awkward about making this request, but it will soon become a matter of habit. Simply ask, "Can you think of some other people I might talk to about?" (Getting jobs in financial management, working at ABC, starting my own business, going back to school in mid-career, moving from academia into private industry, going from corporate training into public school teaching, launching a consulting practice, buying a franchise...) When you get names, be sure to write them down, get the right spelling, and establish the correct pronunciation. Then ask whether you may use the provider's name in yourself introduction. "Would you mind," you might ask, "my saying that you suggested I call?"
