Did you know that 70% of jobs aren’t advertised on job websites, and 85% of vacancies are filled via referrals? Shocking, right? This statistic shows just how important it is to connect with other people to grow in your chosen career path.
Networking is the act of building social connections and relationships. Now, if you’re doing this with the aim of developing contacts in your industry, that’s called career networking.
Why is networking a vital part of your growth?
A strong network of professional connections fast-tracks your development. You can gain access to job opportunities and receive support throughout your career journey. There’s also a vast amount of knowledge that can be gained from interacting with people and listening to their experiences. Let’s dive into the benefits of networking.
1. Building Connections
There’s a popular saying, “No man is an island.” This rings true for career development. Some of your closest career buddies and advisors will come from networking. Who knows, you might even develop close informal friendships.
2. Access to Exclusive Career opportunities
Some roles are pretty sensitive, and when vacancies exist for such roles, they aren’t thrown out to the public. Referrals come in handy during situations like this. With every connection you make, you increase the number of exclusive opportunities you have access to.
3. Building a Reputation
Imagine this: A company is considering you for a role. It just so happens that two members of its advisory board have connected with you during a previous event, and one of them is a connection on LinkedIn. They see your posts and know that you’re an authority in your field. They give you glowing recommendations. What do you think that does to your chances of getting that job? Right, you know the answer.
4. Career Support
Connecting with professionals in your field means that for every stage of your career, there’s an ample number of people available to give you advice, support you, and cheer you on! You gain access to mentors, colleagues, and other key players in your industry. There’s no such thing as “too much support”; you need all the help you can get.
5. You Gain a Skill!
Networking is an art and a skill. Don’t worry; every career professional you see doing well out there wasn’t born with the skills to connect with other people. These things are learned and practiced. Over time, you get more confident in your interactions with others.
Networking Tips for Career Growth
We know that you might be shy, have difficulty expressing yourself, and even hate social gatherings, but these tips will help you up your networking game.-
1. Determine who you want to connect with and what you want to learn from them.
If you’re seeking to develop in a certain area of your career, connecting with someone who’s already an expert in that area is a great action to take. Say you’re a designer who wants to understand how to pitch to clients or how sales works; you could connect with a sales associate and learn from each other.
2. Develop connections at all levels
Do not only connect with people “above” you; you will find that your colleagues and junior associates are also of great help. There’s no telling the level of influence or access someone has from their position. There are all sorts of things you can learn from everyone, irrespective of their job status or position.
3. Give Value
Give before you take. Leveraging connections is all about providing value. Give someone a solution they might need, point out ways in which you could help them, highlight the skills you possess that can help them grow, and they will be willing to collaborate with you and share opportunities.
4. Make use of Social Media Platforms
LinkedIn is an amazing platform for professionals. Networking isn’t, however, limited to LinkedIn. Connect with people on other platforms too. Twitter is a great place to establish your authority on a subject and also connect.
5. Practice
Whether you’re connecting with people online or physically at events, you need to practice your delivery. This might seem like it would make your words monotonous and mechanical, but the goal here is to build confidence in speaking and communicating your thoughts. You’re not practicing a particular set of words to repeat at an opportunity; you are practicing to become comfortable with who you are, what you do, how to approach people, and how to listen.
6. Follow Up
After getting those contacts, don’t let the conversation die. Occasionally bring up topics that might be beneficial to them, share opportunities they might be interested in, and be informed about activities they might be involved in.
Networking can be a daunting task, especially for beginners and socially awkward people, but practice makes perfect. Take the opportunity to genuinely get to know people and be interested in providing value for them.
Need more tips about networking? Catch with our webinar on networking and personal brand building.
Written by: Faith Ojomo
