Networking into Target Organizations

No network is going to be effective if you haven’t spent time thinking about your next position and in what industry. If you don’t know what you are looking for your network can’t help you very much.

Using your family and friends to help you brainstorm new possibilities, is good practice and gives them a way to help you. They know your full history and can give you ideas can lead you in a new direction. Be careful of your emotional state, because these “brainstorming” exercises can range off course.

Old colleagues can also be helpful with the brainstorming, since they worked with you and often remember your accomplishments often better than you do. Often this “brainstorming” with old colleagues can lead you to explore ancillary job positions with former suppliers or customers where your experience and skill will be valued.

The internet and job boards can be very helpful in this brainstorming task. Instead of looking for job openings, take on the attitude that you are researching job positions in organizations that interest you. Let me give an example.

A recent client was laid off from an administrative position at the regional offices for a large church. The church was struggling with finances because donations were down 30% as a result of the recession. Going back to work for another religious organization was a possibility but all churches are struggling with finances these days and they are only hiring if they must. She also realized that she did not want to work full time any longer; instead she wanted work part-time in a job where she could effectively help people.

It occurred to her that she wanted to help immigrants, because of the experience her parents had in immigrating to the US from Italy. She had worked on immigration issues for clergy coming to fill clerical roles in the US, so she had recent relevant experience. As a result of this brainstorming and thinking exercise, she decided to target an administrative job for local immigration legal firms. She went on-line and “Googled” immigration lawyers located in our tri-valley area. She located 8 legal firms in the area and she sent an introductory letter to all eight firms with her resume. She is now working part-time for a local immigration lawyer who is starting her own firm. The lawyer has a heavy case load and is not well organized. The job seeker is a very accomplished administrative assistant. Both the worker and the new employee are very happy with the new arrangement.

Effective networking requires the job seeker to contact people that work in organizations that they develop in their brainstorming and research exercises. As the list of organizations grows, the job seeker can follow the organizations on Linkedin. People recently hired or who have moved on from the target organization can be researched easily on-line by using Linkedin. Using Linkedin it is fairly easy to identify someone within the target organization that can be approached to provide additional research information.

Think of this person as a prospective networking partner. Even with the basic level of Linkedin information you can learn enough about the person, like where they worked previously or where they moved onto. This gives you and easy entry point for starting a conversation and gives you additional potential organizations to target. As opposed to family, friends and former colleagues where the social ties are strong, potential networking partners at these target organizations are weak.

These weak tie networking contacts greatly expand your network, since they have vision into organizations and job positions that normally would not be found in your job search. It is very important to develop these contacts within your target organizations and get their permission to add them to your Linkedin network.

Do your homework on these organizations. Read the company’s mission statement. Look up the management team and read about their background on the company web site and on Linkedin. Read the current press releases from the company. Take notes about questions that you can ask to stimulate discussion with your potential networking partner.

Take a look are the career opportunities on the company’s web page. Print this information out and have it ready on your on your desk. Look up the statistics on the company on Linkedin. Note recently hired or promoted individuals that already work for the target organization. Select someone that has a job similar to what you are targeting; read their profile, and then call them.

If you have difficulty selecting a person by job position, then start with a person in sales or marketing. These people are used to dealing with the public and handle inquiry calls all the time. You can use Linkedin to follow targeted accounts using the free “follow” feature. Linkedin will keep you informed of new job postings and changes in personnel at the targeted company.

Always keep in mind that you are expanding your target organizations and your network, so this new relationship needs to be mutual. You need to bring value by sharing new information with your new networking contact. If you can get their agreement to help you with your research, you will have greatly expanded your network. If you can get 5 to 10 new contacts that agree to help you research your new job positions, you will greatly reduce the amount of time it takes to land your next job.