Assistant Director for Professional Development
As someone who recently looked for employment, I've been in the trenches. I want to share with you the strategies that I have found work well for finding a job. While we all know that networking is critical to finding employment, the techniques I discuss below are not traditionally mentioned in presentations or articles on the topic.
But what is networking? Networking has been defined as “making links from people we know to people they know, in an organized way, for a specific purpose, while remaining committed to doing our part, expecting nothing in return.” (Donna Fisher and Sandy Vilas - Power Networking.) In its simplest terms, networking is connecting with people and sharing each other’s goals and plans. I find this works best when applied broadly because you'll be amazed at who knows who. I am somewhat extraverted, so I bring people into my network that I talk to at the gym, meet at parties, in the neighborhood, etc. The more people that come to know you, the greater your success rate will be in finding employment opportunities, being offered interviews, and landing a job that you truly enjoy.
These are the main networking strategies I found most effective:
- Personal Statement: I spent some time developing a short personal statement (no more than 30 seconds if read or said aloud) about my experience and what kind of job I was seeking. I practiced the statement and fine-tuned the phrasing so that it was as natural for me to say as talking about where I grew up. (LCS will hold programs to help GGU law students develop personal statements, but it’s never too early to start working on one as you never know who you’ll meet today!)
- Reach Out: I then sent out my personal statement to all my friends, relatives and colleagues (past and present) via email and social media (LinkedIn), or relayed it to them in conversation. I invited these people to join me on LinkedIn, and to let me know of any people that they thought would be beneficial for me to contact, any groups to join, or events to attend. Remember the wider your net, the more connections you'll have.
- Organize and Prioritize Your Contact List: I then organized and prioritized a list of who I believed would be most beneficial to talk with about my job search (attorneys and non-attorneys). The list consisted of people I knew (sometimes not well), people referred to me by friends, relatives and colleagues, and people that I identified were a connection to one of my LinkedIn connections. My connections (even if I did not know them well) were more than happy to introduce me to their connections, and to indicate that they had recommended that we connect. (For example, someone I had talked to very little since high school became a LinkedIn connection and recommended me to Microsoft for a position based on my personal statement!)
- Join and Become Active in Various Groups and Attend Events: There are a multitude of groups and events one could attend, so I limited my time to three that were of interest to me and diverse from each other. It is important that you find the members fun, interesting, and engaging because you will be spending a good deal of time with these people. Back to my example, I became active again with the Association of Corporate Counsel, attending CLE lunches and networking functions. I joined the British American Business Council (“BABC”), having recently returned from living in London for several years. I also joined a women’s social networking group where many of the members are entrepreneurs and well-connected in the community. (Note: It’s good to be active with both attorney and non-attorney groups.)
