Networking.
Is there any word that strikes more dread in the hearts of young professionals everywhere? Apparently not, because last night I attended a young professionals in PR networking event where more than 70 students and young professionals RSVPed "yes" to the invitation. There was a veritable cattle call on Eventbrite when the email hit our inboxes and came through our Twitter feeds. I generally consider myself pretty hip and with it, someone who has her finger on the pulse of what's cool, but I don't get the young professional bloodthirst to attend these types of events. Truth be told, I didn't want to go at all. There was not a bone in my body that felt, "Heck yes I want to walk into a room full of strangers, eat finger food touched by too many fingers, and force awkward conversation with people for three hours!" And yet I showed up at 6:30pm sharp with my business cards at the ready in my pocket.
Why? To be perfectly honest, for one, I felt a lot of peer pressure from my fellow classmates to attend, and have felt that same sense of urgency since I entered grad school. We have a lot to prove to potential employers, but I believe that we feel a deep-seated need to prove our worth to each other. Lord knows I don't want to be the one person scrambling to find a job come graduation because I didn't make any contacts at networking events.
Two, I used to attend a lot of networking events when I worked in D.C. and because hindsight is 20/20, I know that I got some value out of the experiences. My supervisor (and former college buddy) is the consummate networker; she could teach a class on networking, but wouldn't, because it would take time away from networking. Whether she is working the room at an industry event or chatting up barflies at her local pub, she is one of those people who has over 1,000 friends on Facebook and is the life of the party wherever she goes. When I was hired at my job, I could bet my bottom dollar that I would be networking. We had a planning and strategy session at the beginning of one fiscal year where she presented her expectation that we spend at least one day a week unchained from our desks and out meeting people. We each had a personal budget devoted to professional development and I signed up for conferences, panels, and happy hours with zeal.
Funny how events always look a lot more appealing on online registration pages than at a continental breakfast table at 8:00am. At most events, I wind up spending far too much time "deciding" between what type of Danish to tong before making a decision about where to sit down. Typically I'm fine striking up a conversation with the person sitting next to me, and generally they are very pleasant people to have to spend a morning with. I quickly learned that they may not think the same thing about you when you're trying to explain more about yourself between bites of bagel (WARNING: Cream cheese on bagels is a trap. Avoid it at all costs. Your teeth and reputation will thank you). Sometimes you'll hit a brick wall with a dud of a seatmate who is shockingly somehow worse at networking than you, and if you're a genius like me, you'll make things even more awkward when you excuse yourself to "grab coffee" to free yourself from pulling teeth. The problem is that after you run to the bathroom, text your boyfriend/roommate about the slow goings-on, and return to your seat with a cup of coffee, you're outed because you forgot that you had a piping hot cup of coffee on the table from Starbucks (because you stopped in before the event to kill time because you always leave yourself two hours to get anywhere new). Everyone proceeds to grimace about how you called attention to the fact that the table is awkward, and God-willing, the program starts.
The worst networking events are the obligatory happy hours after a conference, and if you're traveling, you have no excuse not to attend (even though you would rather curl up with a marathon of the Real Housewives in your hotel room and be in bed by 9:00pm). At any of these events, the uphill battle for young professionals lies in navigating the hierarchy of the guest list. If you're lucky enough to finagle your way into a conversation, the odds are still stacked against you. You're young, so the fact that you were the only one carded at the door is strike one, and strike one-and-a-half is the fact that you're too young/inexperienced to have any influence on hiring at your company. Working at a no-name nonprofit, or even worse, an association or membership organization: strike two. "Oh, you're in school?" Three strikes, and you can guarantee you're going to detect the telltale signs of feigned interest or "Aren't you precious?" nods of sympathy while your conversation partner begins to not so subtly scan the nametags of passerby.
While I have seen my fair share of the bad at networking events, I have also encountered a few good experiences along the way (I'm still waiting for the ugly, a la when trashy women crash a Millionaire Matchmaker mixer). I belonged to a women's PR association that sponsored a "speed networking" event, where local female PR professionals gathered at a local bar during happy hour and rotated in 5-minute intervals to meet with every attendee. I collected dozens of business cards, gained a lot of motherly figures who were thrilled at the prospect of taking me under their wing, and identified some potential sponsorship opportunities for my nonprofit. The automatic business card exchange made it easy to follow up with those you were interested in getting to know, while the short time blocks made every conversation minimally painful. The irony of this event appeared when I followed up the day after with LinkedIn connections, thank-yous, and requests for future coffee dates, but a week later our conversations would fizzle and neither woman could commit to finding time to "network." (And now I have other contacts on LinkedIn asking me to connect them to a senior account executive at Weber Shandwick with whom I have five minutes worth of a relationship.)
In order to make networking events more bearable, I have developed a mini system for making them as effective, efficient, and dare I say enjoyable, as possible.
Is there any word that strikes more dread in the hearts of young professionals everywhere? Apparently not, because last night I attended a young professionals in PR networking event where more than 70 students and young professionals RSVPed "yes" to the invitation. There was a veritable cattle call on Eventbrite when the email hit our inboxes and came through our Twitter feeds. I generally consider myself pretty hip and with it, someone who has her finger on the pulse of what's cool, but I don't get the young professional bloodthirst to attend these types of events. Truth be told, I didn't want to go at all. There was not a bone in my body that felt, "Heck yes I want to walk into a room full of strangers, eat finger food touched by too many fingers, and force awkward conversation with people for three hours!" And yet I showed up at 6:30pm sharp with my business cards at the ready in my pocket.
Why? To be perfectly honest, for one, I felt a lot of peer pressure from my fellow classmates to attend, and have felt that same sense of urgency since I entered grad school. We have a lot to prove to potential employers, but I believe that we feel a deep-seated need to prove our worth to each other. Lord knows I don't want to be the one person scrambling to find a job come graduation because I didn't make any contacts at networking events.
Two, I used to attend a lot of networking events when I worked in D.C. and because hindsight is 20/20, I know that I got some value out of the experiences. My supervisor (and former college buddy) is the consummate networker; she could teach a class on networking, but wouldn't, because it would take time away from networking. Whether she is working the room at an industry event or chatting up barflies at her local pub, she is one of those people who has over 1,000 friends on Facebook and is the life of the party wherever she goes. When I was hired at my job, I could bet my bottom dollar that I would be networking. We had a planning and strategy session at the beginning of one fiscal year where she presented her expectation that we spend at least one day a week unchained from our desks and out meeting people. We each had a personal budget devoted to professional development and I signed up for conferences, panels, and happy hours with zeal.
Funny how events always look a lot more appealing on online registration pages than at a continental breakfast table at 8:00am. At most events, I wind up spending far too much time "deciding" between what type of Danish to tong before making a decision about where to sit down. Typically I'm fine striking up a conversation with the person sitting next to me, and generally they are very pleasant people to have to spend a morning with. I quickly learned that they may not think the same thing about you when you're trying to explain more about yourself between bites of bagel (WARNING: Cream cheese on bagels is a trap. Avoid it at all costs. Your teeth and reputation will thank you). Sometimes you'll hit a brick wall with a dud of a seatmate who is shockingly somehow worse at networking than you, and if you're a genius like me, you'll make things even more awkward when you excuse yourself to "grab coffee" to free yourself from pulling teeth. The problem is that after you run to the bathroom, text your boyfriend/roommate about the slow goings-on, and return to your seat with a cup of coffee, you're outed because you forgot that you had a piping hot cup of coffee on the table from Starbucks (because you stopped in before the event to kill time because you always leave yourself two hours to get anywhere new). Everyone proceeds to grimace about how you called attention to the fact that the table is awkward, and God-willing, the program starts.
The worst networking events are the obligatory happy hours after a conference, and if you're traveling, you have no excuse not to attend (even though you would rather curl up with a marathon of the Real Housewives in your hotel room and be in bed by 9:00pm). At any of these events, the uphill battle for young professionals lies in navigating the hierarchy of the guest list. If you're lucky enough to finagle your way into a conversation, the odds are still stacked against you. You're young, so the fact that you were the only one carded at the door is strike one, and strike one-and-a-half is the fact that you're too young/inexperienced to have any influence on hiring at your company. Working at a no-name nonprofit, or even worse, an association or membership organization: strike two. "Oh, you're in school?" Three strikes, and you can guarantee you're going to detect the telltale signs of feigned interest or "Aren't you precious?" nods of sympathy while your conversation partner begins to not so subtly scan the nametags of passerby.
While I have seen my fair share of the bad at networking events, I have also encountered a few good experiences along the way (I'm still waiting for the ugly, a la when trashy women crash a Millionaire Matchmaker mixer). I belonged to a women's PR association that sponsored a "speed networking" event, where local female PR professionals gathered at a local bar during happy hour and rotated in 5-minute intervals to meet with every attendee. I collected dozens of business cards, gained a lot of motherly figures who were thrilled at the prospect of taking me under their wing, and identified some potential sponsorship opportunities for my nonprofit. The automatic business card exchange made it easy to follow up with those you were interested in getting to know, while the short time blocks made every conversation minimally painful. The irony of this event appeared when I followed up the day after with LinkedIn connections, thank-yous, and requests for future coffee dates, but a week later our conversations would fizzle and neither woman could commit to finding time to "network." (And now I have other contacts on LinkedIn asking me to connect them to a senior account executive at Weber Shandwick with whom I have five minutes worth of a relationship.)
In order to make networking events more bearable, I have developed a mini system for making them as effective, efficient, and dare I say enjoyable, as possible.
- When possible, use the buddy system.
While you don't want to be Klingons, having a co-worker or a friend can be a lifesaver at a networking event. You can commit to meeting people independently, but it's nice to know that you have a wingman should you need it.
- Arrive at day events a few minutes late; arrive at night events on the dot. For some reason, people never want to sit directly next to one another when the sun is out. If you have ever been one of the first in the room at a day event, you likely have noticed that entrants will scan the room and notice you, but rarely will sit next to you. I see a lot of sitting in the front row or the very back row, while there is also a lot of "Let me sit a row behind you and three seats over," and all scenarios are accompanied by people pretending to be highly engrossed in their Twitter feed or Outlook inbox. In contrast, early birds at night events generally feel slightly more empowered to talk to someone (anyone!) and will introduce themselves more readily (liquid courage?). When you arrive on time, you may snag more one-on-one time with event organizers, and when new guests arrive, you can take control of the situation by introducing yourself, instead of having to find your way into established conversations. By meeting people early, you can also move on to the latecomers and hit everyone in the room. Most importantly, the earlier you arrive, the earlier you can justifiably leave!
- Look at the attendee list, do your homework, and identify a Top 3 list of people you want to meet. Networking is much easier when you have specific targets in your line of sight. Come armed with an entrance strategy, a few topics or questions you would like to discuss, and an exit strategy to gracefully quit while you're ahead. You can often break open good conversations, but if your conversation doesn't amount to much, you can then relax and meet whoever knowing that you tried.
- Aim for the top bananas, but don't discriminate against low-hanging fruit. The senior execs are great people to meet, but some of the best people to network with are your peers. Peers have been in the same boat as you and they can offer good advice about how they charted their course to their first series of jobs. They may be more eager to establish or grow their professional network and may be more likely to look out for you in the future.
- Be articulate, but act like a normal human being. People know you're young; people want to know that you're also able to conduct yourself confidently and professionally. People don't want a recitation of your resume.
- Follow up. Networking events are useless until you send a follow-up email (unless you like making art out of business cards). Even if nothing happens, you will be vaguely remembered as friendly, polite, and ambitious.
- Buy a pretty business card case. Just because. You look baller when you exchange cards. I'll include a later link about a few I'm lusting after.
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