By Khalilah Starks

This week, I’ve heard some great success stories about networking that I simply must share!  These stories were shared with me by professionals who have successfully used networking as a tool to uncover awesome career opportunities.  I hope that you enjoy them as much as I did!  And, of course, I encourage you to take lessons learned from these examples and apply them to your own networking and job search strategy.

Volunteering. Three years ago, Rebecca, a Marketing Associate, was asked to volunteer at a local hospital.  While volunteering, she met a Vice President of Marketing who worked for a large Pharmaceutical company in her city.  In their initial conversation, they realized that they had many things in common, including their hometown and alma mater.  Rebecca knew that this was a great relationship to develop, and pursued a lunch meeting with the Vice President.  But, unfortunately, lunch never happened because of several time conflicts.

Fast forward 3 years, Rebecca, not actively looking for employment, received an email from a colleague that included listings of open Marketing positions in her area.  She immediately noticed that there was an attractive job opportunity at the Vice President’s company.  So, she quickly contacted her to find out if she still worked for the company and to request additional information about the position.  This was a great opportunity to reestablish the connection.  The Vice President was very pleased to hear from her and had actually been promoted to Senior Vice President of Marketing.  She told Rebecca that they were in the final stages of interviewing and had narrowed the search down to two candidates, but that she was interested in having her meet with the Marketing team.  She said that even if they decided to hire one of the two final candidates, she was still interested in considering Rebecca for other Marketing opportunities within the organization.

This story illustrates a couple of great points.  The most obvious is that volunteering can create networking opportunities that can open doors to potential employment.  And, when applying for a job, it’s best to use your network to apply.  In this example, Rebecca could have certainly applied through the channel listed in the email, but instead she chose to use her network which resulted in an immediate interview and serious consideration for the listed position.

Linked In. Kathy, a Human Resources Manager, has always been very diligent about making connections and keeping an updated profile on LinkedIn, a social networking site for professionals.  She’s not at a point where she’s aggressively pursuing a job search, just passively considering opportunities that come her way.  Recently, she was contacted by a Recruiting Manager at a company who stated that he had come across her profile which looked awesome and seemed to fit the needs of his organization.  He also stated that the position that he had in mind for her, had not yet opened, but that he was trying to be proactive in identifying a candidate.  He then invited Kathy to his office for an informal meeting to discuss the position.  In this instance, the position that Kathy is meeting about, will probably never be advertised since the recruiter is conducting the networking necessary to identify candidates and fill the position before it even becomes available.

Speed Networking. Jim, a Financial Analyst, was living in Ohio and actively searching for employment after graduate school.  He identified Chicago as his target location.  To commence his search, he got on the phone with all of his friends and professional contacts in the area to let them know that he was searching for employment and looking to move to Chicago.  Next, he scheduled a trip to Chicago to conduct some serious networking – I call it Speed Networking.  Several of his friends worked in the financial services industry and he asked them to reach out to their closest contacts to schedule 15-minute meet and greets so that he could learn about their current roles.  He positioned himself as a recent graduate just trying to learn more about the industry.  His friends were able to set up several meetings for him.  And, his strategy actually worked!  He met some great professionals that continued to be great contacts and one of his meetings actually led him to another professional contact, which led to his first offer!

This strategy worked for a couple of reasons.  First, he was personally referred to these contacts – referrals are always given special consideration.  Secondly, he didn’t make the purpose of his meeting related to his job search which can sometimes be a turn off to busy professionals.  This approach takes a lot of guts, but is a proven strategy for opening doors to exciting career opportunities.