Networking 101, Part TWO

Last week, I introduced an article called "5 Ways to Make Networking Work for YOU!". As you will recall, we discussed the first way mentioned in the article - "Mix it up". See the post, Networking 101, Part ONE if you missed it.

Today we will talk about the second way - Know your message.

In the article, Mandy Cooley suggests that you should act as "President, CEO and Sales Manager for You, Inc." How can you market yourself and your skills most effectively when networking?

The first step is determining the message that you want to send to all people you network with. You are not just reiterating everything that is on your resume. You don't have time to do this during a networking "event".

Mandy says, "You should be able to tell anyone you asks, without hesitation, what your strengths are, a few job titles that would be a good fit, and what value you bring to an organization. Also, you should be able to tell anyone who asks, 5 - 10 organizations and/or people you would like to meet or get to know better."

To help you figure out what your strengths are, I would suggest that you do a formal assessment. One way you can do this is to sign up for the Career Scope here at Network RI. You will need to talk with your counselor about this as s/he will be the one to sign you up and go over the results with you. Another tool you can use to determine your strengths is to do an online assessment. There are many free tools available online. One that I have used successfully with students is the Multiple Intellence Survey, http://literacyworks.org/mi/assessment/findyourstrengths.html

This is a short survey which determines which Intelligences are your strongest and which are your weakest. Not only will learning about your "intelligences" help you to talk about your strengths in networking, but it can help you become a better learner and use Skills Tutor more effectively. For more on this, please see this week's Tip of the week.

Once you figure out what you want to say in networking situations, practice. Practice what some job coaches call the elevator pitch. What can you say about yourself and your skills, the type of job your are looking for, and people you would like to meet, in the time it would take to ride up an elevator? I've seen some experts say that you should be able to give your elevator pitch in about 15 to 30 seconds. Try it. What do you want people to know about you?