How To Get Your Network To Work For You

Virtually every career coach, outplacement advisor, and college career service officer will agree: the best way to get a job is to network your way into it. But that can be a tall order if you’ve been out of work for some time, or if you think of yourself as a shy or introverted person. And, it is doubly hard if you think of networking as just telling everyone in real or virtual earshot, “Help me! What should I do?”

Networking is fundamentally about building relationships, whether online though social sites like LinkedIn, or in-person at all kinds of meetings and informational interviews. Chances are, if you step back and think about it, you already have a good network to begin with: family members, current and former co-workers, members of professional organizations, alumni groups, church or synagogue, and so forth. And then the question becomes: how do you go about the task of getting your network to work for you effectively?