Why is it important to build a network?
People are increasingly relying on their networks and connections to find work roles, opportunities, projects, funding and information.
As someone who’s employed people, I can absolutely relate to this. Hiring someone who needs to fill an important function and play a part of your team, just from the basis of a CV / Resume, and an interview, doesn’t really make sense. I want to know the personality, context, background and have some kind of relationship with someone I’m going to rely on to perform the job.
The challenge, is how to create that network, when you do that, and how you do it.
When should you build your network?
Somewhere in your career and life, you’re going to need someone else. Advice, opportunities, motivation, jobs. You don’t know what you’ll need, and you don’t know what you’ll be able to offer others.
How do you build your network?
It’s tricky to feel like you’re ‘ready’ to connect with more professional people, especially if they’re further along their career path than you are.
LinkedIn is a great place to start building a profile for yourself. You can take your time to decide how to present who you are, where you are, and ‘follow’ others who are on similar paths, or represent role models. That also allows you to ‘learn’ what works, and how to incorporate those things into your approach.
The beauty of social media, is that you’re able to connect with people you’ve never met, and may never otherwise have the opportunity to meet!
Networking for introverts
Taking the work out of Networking
Introvert’s guide to making connections that count
(Click to flip over!)
Elementor Flipbox
As a former Google executive and editorial director of Twitter (and an introvert!), she’s got a great combination of knowledge about networking at fairly ‘high’ levels, and technology. (As opposed to the classic ‘business card swap’ and ‘coffee meet and greet’!). There are a lot of really great, simple and practical pieces of advice.
Here’s a podcast of some of the concepts she covers, as a briefer clip of the book!
So, time to build your profile, and start building your network!
